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THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE
ANGLO-SAXON RACE

BY
M. V. B. KNOX
Author of "A Summer's Saunterings," "A Legend of
Schroon Lake," " A Winter in India
and Malaysia," etc.

"If it be true that nothing human can be without
interest for a man. surely that which tells of the re
ligious belief of our forefathers must be of deepest
and nearest interest. It had something to do in mak
ing us what we are." J. M. Kemble

BOSTON
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY
1913

coptbight, 1913
Shehman, French &' Compaitt

TO
MY WIFE

The roots of the present lie deep
in the past, and nothing is dead to
the man who would learn how the
present comes to be what it is. ' '
Stubb's "Constitutional
History of England."

PREFATORY NOTE
The religious life comes of man's relation to the
great Creator. On that relation depends highest
worth to the individual and in the aggregate, to the
nation. Man is a religious being whether found in
barbarian wilds or in the whirl of modern civiliza
tion. His religion has always had much to do in
shaping his progress. The savage depends upon his
fetich, the civilized man upon the word of the seers.
Doubtless God in some way answers the cry of all his
children no matter by what means they try to ap
proach him.
The Anglo-Saxons have all along been most de
vout. The first glimpses of these people show them
to have been highly religious, with a spirit most in
dependent and stubborn and on their coming to
Britain these peculiarities and other valuable ones
were steadily developed. With willingness to work
or to fight, with an aggressive instinct keenly alive to
opportunities, having a language well adapted to
human needs, and later with an open Bible, it is no
wonder that they became great and powerful.
It is the purpose of this work to trace the forces
of the religious life that have aided the English-
speaking race to become so mighty and successful.
It will be shown how in various fields of its civiliza
tion these forces have been present and active. Many
means besides the distinctly church beliefs and prac
tices have helped in that elevation. At the first the

PREFATORY NOTE
Anglo-Saxon was a faithful servant of Woden as
later he became obedient to Christ.
This work is not another church history. Yet as
the denominations have shown the religious life, or
have neglected it, their history has been asked to
yield its testimony. Wide search in various fields
of racial life has been made in order to trace as much
as possible the active principles leading upward, ever
present and forceful. As the twentieth century is
passing it is pleasing to note that the religious life so
constructive through the ages, now more unbound
than at any previous epoch, is a mightier force than
ever in fashioning that noblest of all endeavor, ex
alted manhood and womanhood.

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF THE ANGLO-
SAXON RACE.

CHAPTER I '
From the beginning the Anglo-Saxons in England
showed in a marked degree the strong elements of
character that since have made them great. This
mighty race, wherever located, now plays an im
portant part in the world's best progress. Long
before obtaining a foothold in Britain, the three
closely related tribes finally forming the first perma
nent settlement, had harassed under the name of
Saxons the coast of Britain from the Wash to
Southampton, compelling a line of fortifications to
be erected by the Roman occupants, and a fleet to be
sustained under command of the Count of the Saxon
shore. The homeland of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes on
the continent compelled a life of poverty and strug
gle. Their surroundings and life made them hardy,
brave, and venturesome. Natural selection going
on most actively under such conditions would leave
alive those strong of limb and body, as well as brave
of heart.
They had learned better than any partly civilized
people known the high worth of woman, and were
not slow in showing it, for they gave her a promi
nent place in managing domestic affairs, as also a
place in their councils and even in their warlike ex
peditions. They prized chastity, the high qualities
attributed to the Germans by Tacitus being found in
the tribes settling in Britain. Whether on the con-

2 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
tinent or in Britain they were truly religious. Hav
ing settled in Britain they conducted the worship of
Woden, Thor, and other gods, with temples erected
to the,;. Following the Latin term, our ancestors
of that period are often spoken of as barbarians.
Their social and intellectual position, to be sure,
was much behind that of Rome and Constantinople,
but a people with considerable laws put into con
stant practice, using some of the Greek alphabet as
runes, capable of forming extensive leagues both to
resist the aggressive Romans and to make wide con
quests by land and sea, cultivating the soil, having
domesticated animals, and mounting large bodies
of cavalry for battle, facile in the use of iron, orig
inating poetry and myths of no mean order, having
a religious system with idols, priests, mysteries, were
no mean barbarians.
The free spirit which in the racial progress has
given rise to parliaments and a constitutional mon
archy, to a written constitution and a federated re
public, can be detected in those venturesome, vindic
tive freebooters that caused fear along the Saxon
shore, and later at Ebbsfleet. Free churches have
come of the same spirit. A contemporary said of
them that a boat-load would all command and all
obey at the same time. Never was the neck of the
long-haired Saxon put beneath the yoke. They
were free men. Covetous of the country so much
better than their own dreary land, they persisted
through the centuries, undaunted by the wide and
dangerous German ocean, unbeaten by the stubborn
Britons who incessantly resisted conquest, another

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 3
generation, when one had perished, carrying for
ward the remorseless purpose. A sense of destiny
or duty seemed to pervade them.
The part played by Pope Gregory in Christianiz
ing Britain must in the affections of the converted
race ever cover that man's memory with a halo of
glory. His glowing determination followed up to
lead the conquerors of Britain to Christ can never
be forgotten. The group of English slaves seen by
him in the market of Rome, formed by their marvel
ous physical beauty a Macedonian call in the heart
of Gregory. He then determined that those pagan
Angles must be made truly angels, their land, Deira,
should be freed from the wrath of God, abiding in its
very name, their king, JElla, should be caused to
hear the Alleluias of redeemed souls. Hindered him
self from going to them and elected pope, he was in
a better position still to effect their evangelization.
In selecting the monk Augustine to lead the mission
to Britain he was fortunate, since the planting by
his hand and by his judicious administration was
never wholly uprooted.
Again Ebbsfleet in Kent was the point where the
landfall occurred which was the second time to revo
lutionize Britain by the Anglo-Saxon race. Augus
tine and his forty monks were bringing a new re
ligion, a new life, a new civilization. A woman, as
often in the history of that people, was a beneficent
aid to better things. Bertha, the French princess,
married to the king of Kent, clasped hands across a
century and a half with Rowena, the daughter of

4 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Hengist. Each helped prepare the way for Anglo-
Saxon supremacy. Bertha, as one condition of be
coming the wife of the Kentish king, was to have
Christian worship in her new home. For this pur
pose an old British church at Canterbury, the cap
ita], was restored from its ruins, and her own bishop,
Luidhard, conducted services in it. Her influence
upon her husband might have given him a leaning
toward Christianity. Probably her representation
to Gregory of an inviting field in Kent came to the
pope as a renewal of the Macedonian call heard
years before.
The rather spectacular meeting of Ethelbert and
Augustine, when chanting a litany he came with his
forty monks in procession bearing a painted Christ
aloft, must have created a strange impression in the
king, whose usual meeting with strangers was that
of battle ax and battle cry. The claim of the mis
sionary through Gallic interpreters that he had
come to tell the king and his people of a better way
of life and for an existence forever with the true God
after this life, must have seemed strange to Ethel
bert when the usual message of strangers coming
into his territory was that of defiance and conflict.
The uncertainty of having to do with an unknown
people, the fear of magical arts if audience was
granted the new comers in the church or in any
building, led the king to appoint the first meeting
under an oak as if to seek protection from the sacred
tree of the Druids.
Ethelbert's answer to Augustine was politic and
cautious, since he said their words and promises

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 5
were fair but new and that he could not forsake the
faith of his fathers and of the whole English nation.
But he would give the missionaries a place to live in,
he said, protection, food, and permission to make as
many converts among his subjects as they could.
He assigned them a residence in Canterbury and the
church of St. Martin's, already opened for the
Queen's services they used for public worship.
Their devotion, abstemious habits and alluring doc
trines led many of the people to forsake their old
gods, and the king also, after a few months, pro
fessed adherence to the God of his Queen. His con
version was the signal for a great movement toward
the new way among the nobles and other people of
rank, so that on Christmas-tide following their ar
rival in August the missionaries baptized ten thou
sand converts. Much outward expression was made
of this new faith in the kingdom, for great gifts
were bestowed by the king upon Augustine and his
co-workers. Ethelbert's own palace at Reculver
and a site near it for a church were given. Old
British churches were renovated and occupied, new
ones built, and converts gathered in all parts of the
little kingdom. Ethelbert, though urged by the
pope to force the new religion upon his people, would
not do it, already seeing that advance in Christian
evangelization was best made by argument and per
suasion. He counted the converts as Christian
brethren, being very affectionate toward them, thus
setting a gauge of fellowship and toleration that has
run with less or greater success through all the
church life of the race.

6 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
A hundred and fifty years had passed from the
first irruption of the Anglo-Saxons and no effort had
been made to teach them Christianity. The Britons,
whom they were forcing back step by step, had been
Christianized almost from apostolic time, but they
made no effort to lead the Germanic invaders to
Christ. So intense was the conflict between the two
peoples, so vindictive and so destructive to life and
property and institutions, that the Britons seem to
have engendered the bitterest hatred and utmost re
pugnance toward them. Hence the opportunity
offered the Britons to convert a great people to
Christ was lost. Nor would they join with Augus
tine for the same noble service, thus losing a second
opportunity. Augustine and his monks brought with them the
mustard seed of the parable in another way, the be
ginning of the vast possessions of books and libraries
now the invaluable inheritance of the English-speak
ing people. These first books were a Bible, a book
of the Martyrs, Apocrypha, Lives of the Apostles,
and Exposition of certain Epistles and Gospels. It
is significant that this earliest library among the
Anglo-Saxons was a religious one.
Augustine referred certain questions to the pope.
It was ordered that Augustine might select from the
native customs of what seemed best for the English,
only being certain they were pious and upright.
No nearer marriages were to be contracted than the
second remove of kinship, and no one was to take his
stepmother or sister-in-law. The oversight of the
native British church, still subsisting in the western

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE "T
part of the island, not yet subdued by the invaders,
was committed to Augustine by Gregory. But Au
gustine seems to have bungled, for in meeting the
British clergy he peremptorily demanded that they
should adopt the Roman date for observing Easter,
different from their own ; that they should follow the
Roman mode of baptism and the tonsure, and join
with him in converting the Anglo-Saxons. But
these things they utterly refused. In a denuncia
tory manner Augustine consigned them to destruc
tion. This curse seemed to be fulfilled a few years
later when in a battle near Bangor the monks were
praying for the success of the British arms and were
slain by the hundred under the Anglo-Saxon battle-
axes. It was the purpose of Gregory to plot the island,
making two archiepiscopal provinces, the seat of
one at London, the other at York, dividing each
province to twelve suffragan bishops. Both cities
had the promise of much growth. But Augustine,
now archbishop and well settled at Canterbury,
seemed to prefer that city to London. Yet this city
was soon made the head of a diocese, its king Sea-
bert having been converted, and Mellitus, sent from
Rome, made its bishop. He built a church, St.
Paul's, on the site of a temple to Diana.
Paulinus in 625 was sent to York nominally as
archbishop, but having to create his own province,
for the only Christian in all his province was the
Queen, who, a daughter of Ethelbert and Bertha,
went to Northumbria a wife of Edwin the king on
conditions similar to those of her mother, having an

8 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
attendant priest and the privilege of Christian wor
ship. Along with these men and a few others to aid
Augustine helps were sent by Gregory for the cere
monialism so prominent in all the Anglo-Saxon
period, vestments, ornaments, relics of apostle and
martyr, vessels for the churches and more invaluable
books. It was decided that the temples of the old worship
should not be destroyed but cleaned of idols, sancti
fied by holy water, and having relics of the saints
placed in them, should be used as Christian churches.
In place of bloody offerings and heathen rites per
formed at those temples, the people were to kill
cattle and feast upon them about the buildings now
made churches, having their hearts filled with thank
fulness to the Giver of all benefits.
Gregory was greatly elated with this mission, all
the more that this people were counted as the most
savage and ferocious of all the Germanic peoples.
He wrote a letter to Ethelbert, calling him his own
son, and finally urging him to seek the conversion of
his people by a spotless life, by exhorting, soothing,
correcting them. He was to give them an example
of good works, assured that the story of his deeds in
this matter would spread over all the earth. In a
similar strain he wrote to Bertha, congratulating
her, and suggesting if she had not used her extraor
dinary opportunities to the best advantage, still in
the present success she would be highly commended.
As the work expanded the pope granted Justus,
then archbishop, the right to ordain bishops for that
expansion. Their first attempt for the conversion

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 9
of Northumbria came from Kent. Edwin, the king
of that country, desired Ethelberga, the daughter
of Ethelbert, for his wife, but this her brother Ead-
bald refused unless Edwin would favorably consider
becoming a Christian and permit a priest to accom
pany the princess to his court. These conditions
being acquiesced in she was married to him. Edwin
had been greatly impressed in a supposed vision
while in exile to adopt Christianity. He now prom
ised to become a Christian if an expedition against
Wessex was successful. The expedition of Edwin
was all he hoped for, yet he hesitated to turn Chris
tian. Finally the king calling together his wise men
laid the question of a change before them. At the
meeting of the Witan the high priest of the old faith
was first to speak, saying that their old gods could
not be of much power since he himself had served
them with all devotion, but that he had received
fewer favors than many others less devout. If the
promise of honors from the new God was better, he
was in favor of adopting the new faith. More sensi
ble was the speech of an aged thegn who said that
the life of man was like what they had seen in their
halls of feasting, a sparrow flying in from the
night outside, flitting about for a few moments, and
then flying out of the other door into the darkness.
If the new religion could tell whence man came and
whither he went, he wished to adopt it. It was
finally decided by the Witan to forsake the old and
accept the new. At once Edwin and his nobles and
many others were baptized. It is said that no less
than ten thousand were in one day baptized in the

10 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Swale, entering the water two by two, each plung
ing the other under water.
Paulinus, the Queen's priest, now saw the first
fruits of his long waiting and unwearied labors.
When preaching the new way, one of his journeys
among the Cheviots was no less than thirty-six days
in length, teaching and catechizing the people who
flocked to him. His labors must have been pro
digious and tireless since they extended over all
parts of the north country. However, the religious
life reached by his converts must have been slight,
the first short steps towards the new way. Edwin
put up a stone church at York in place of the mean
one of wattles and mud previously put up for the
worship by the Queen and her priest. The curious
visitor at Yorkminster to-day is shown beneath this
magnificent pile the remnants of Anglo-Saxon stone
work foundations of the structure erected twelve
hundred years ago under the impulse of the earnest
Paulinus. Edwin, as Britwaldar, after his conversion be
came an active helper in reaching those not yet
adopting Christianity. Through his influence
Earpwald, King of the East Angles, and his people
accepted the new faith. In Edwin's time the saying
arose that a woman with her new born babe on her
bosom could walk unharmed from sea to sea. The
beneficent spirit of the king was shown in having
brazen dippers hung beside all the springs in his
domains for thirsty travelers to drink.
Penda, king of Mercia in mid-Britain, was still
a most vigorous representation of the old faith.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 11
He joined with Cadwalla, the Christian king of the
Welsh, in an attack upon Edwin, causing his defeat
and death. With the death of Edwin the nascent
church fostered by him was all but ruined, for those
hardy warriors could not well comprehend the worth
of a religion whose deity did not protect its believers
from destruction by those whose belief represented
the gods of their former faith. Northumbria being
devastated by Penda and Cadwalla, Paulinus and
the widow of Edwin fled back to Kent. However,
Paulinus left a missionary at York, James, a subor
dinate cleric, who successfully held together some of
the Christians, secretly teaching and baptizing such
as he could induce to remain steadfast or could lead
to the new faith.
Later Penda attacked Wessex, whose king and
people had recently become Christians, which seemed
enough to lead the pagan warrior to go against that
kingdom. Not yet satisfied, Penda pushed his vic
torious arms against the East Angles. Their king,
Segebert, weary with the wars and reigning, had ab
dicated the throne some time before, and had re
tired to a monastery for seclusion and devotion, but
on the approach of the terrible Penda was taken by
the people and put at the head of the army since
they thought he could better lead them than his son.
With only a wand instead of a sword the king did
the best he could, but the superb generalship of
Penda prevailed and Segebert was slain with many of
his people.

CHAPTER II
The part played by the Celtic missionaries in the
conversion of the northern part of England was
most noble. Owing to some intestine conflicts the
Prince of Bernicia fled to the Scots, and at the mon
astery of lona being taught the Christian doctrine,
accepted it. On his return to govern his kingdom
he brought missionaries with him, but the leader of
the band, not being a success, deserted his post and
returned to lona. Recounting his experiences
among the Northumbrians, he was asked by one of
the chapter if he had not attempted to feed those
weak ones with strong meat instead of milk as babes.
This spirit was caught by the chapter as marking
the speaker, Aidan, providentially for the same mis
sion. Coming to King Oswald he was granted the in
hospitable island of Lindisfarne, where he built a
monastery. From this central station Aidan and
his fellow workers went over all Northumbria from
the Tyne to the Humber, preaching, teaching, bap
tizing. As more monks were needed the hive at lona
sent them out to help Aidan. The people flocked
together to hear and learn, churches were built,
money and lands were given by the king to build
monasteries as multiplied centers of evangelization.
The Scriptures were diligently studied by these
priests, who also urged the people to read them.
These Celtic monks following their home station in
12

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 13
fasting and in distributing to the poor, never grew
rich, and the monasteries were but poor and meanly
furnished. Oswald caught the spirit of his great
teachers for one day, so the story goes, when feast
ing with Aidan present, the servitor handing the
king a silver dish told him that a street full of poor
were begging alms. He then refused the food, send
ing it to the suffering ones outside, and also broke
the silver bowl into fragments and sent them for dis
tribution as money among the people.
The kings in the little kingdoms mostly led in ac
cepting Christianity. Birinus, a spirited continen
tal monk, going to the pope for appointment to mis
sion work was assigned to the extremest western
regions, but finding Wessex still heathen, stopped
for work in that kingdom. The king, Cynegils, ac
cepting the new way was baptized, the devout Os
wald from Northumbria was present, encouraging
the royal neophyte and took the daughter of Cyne
gils back to Northumbria as his wife. On the suc
cess of Birinus the Scotic missionaries flocked from
the north to help him, and a bishopric was set up at
Dorchester. Mostly under the labors of these
monks from the north the work went on. By the
beginning of the ninth century the house of Cedric,
in Egbert, controlled all the kingdoms. His son,
Ethelwulf set up a system of tithes, establishing the
"Church of England."
Mercia, as well as the other kingdoms, must have
the gospel light. Peada, a son of the pagan Penda,
being granted some share of the government of his
father, sought the daughter of Oswald in marriage

U THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
but was refused unless he would become a Christian,
and be baptized. When on the marital embassy to
Northampton he listened to the statement of Chris
tian truth, the promise of an heavenly inheritance,
the resurrection of the body, the immortality of the
soul, he declared he would become a Christian even
though denied the hand of Elfleda, and so with his
retinue was baptized. Returning to Mercia he took
with him four priests, one Scot and three English,
whose preaching led many of the nobles and common
people to accept baptism. Even Penda did not ob
struct this movement, but astute man of affairs as
he was, insisted that those receiving the new teach
ings should live up to them, heartily despising those
who did not, saying that they were contemptible and
wretched who did not obey their God in whom they
believed. A bishopric was set up, Diuma, a Scot,
being made bishop. In time Mercia became very
rich in monasteries, churches, priories and abbeys.
By the death of Penda the last great opponent of
Christianity perished. Oswald of Northumbria
finding that Penda devised an attack upon his peo
ple, offered that formidable warrior presents as trib
ute, but these being refused Oswald bravely deter
mined to meet the foe though with a much inferior
force. Making a vow to bestow grounds for twelve
monasteries if successful, and to dedicate his daugh
ter of but a year to the sacred life of a nun, he
fought the battle of Wenevid utterly defeating
Penda and killing him.
After Milletus was driven away from Essex the
East Saxons remained joined to their idols forty

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 16
years, when their king, called Sigebert the Little,
visiting Oswald in a familiar manner was led to
accept Christ by Oswald drawing a contrast between
the wooden idols of the old cult and the eternal Cre
ator and supreme Ruler of the Universe. He and
his retinue were baptized. On his return to Essex
he took two priests with him, and of these Cedd,
after the two had been most successful in making
converts and building churches, was raised to the
place of bishop.
Cedd was led by Oswald to build a monastery as a
special place of that king's devotions, and where
buried he might have the benefit of the special
prayers of the holy men in the monastery. Cedd
chose a place among some craggy hills deeming he
could make it holy by praying there during all Lent
and by fasting every day until evening. He flnally
died in the monastery of the plague, and thirty of his
East Anglican disciples, seeking the privilege of
becoming monks in the place where their beloved
bishop had died, all feU victims to the direful
scourge. All the petty kingdoms had now been converted
except Sussex. Only a little group of Celtic mis
sionaries had entered it, and they met poor success.
Nearly a hundred years had passed since Augustine
had landed at Ebbsfleet. But Wilfred, being ex
pelled from Northumbria fled to Sussex, and teach
ing Christianity led many of the people to accept
that faith. Ethelwalch, their king, having some
time before visited Northumbria, had forsaken the
idols and possibly Wilfred had there become ac-

16 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
quainted with him. The people of Sussex, with
their king a Christian, and the noble Wilfred
preaching to them, forsook the old way and by the
thousand were baptized by the devout missionaries.
The Isle of Selsey was given to Wilfred by Ethel
walch, and on it a monastery was soon built. Fam
ilies to the number of eighty-seven lived on the
island whose slaves, two hundred and fifty, were set
free. Thus Wilfred preceded Wilberforce and Lin
coln by a millennium. Five years before the king of
Wessex ravaging Sussex made a vow to Heaven that
he would bestow one-fourth of his conquests upon
the church, and the Isle of Wight falling into his
hands he fulfilled the vow by granting it to Wilfred.
Two royal youths who had fled from Wight were be
trayed to Coedwalla, the South Saxon king, and
doomed to death, but he did have compassion enough
to permit Cynebert, an abbot, to teach them Chris
tianity and baptize them before the murder, so that
these two poor princes can be thought of as the first
fruits of Christianity in that beautiful isle.
Thus the Anglo-Saxons were converted to the
Christian religion and the island was regarded as a
Christian country by the papacy. It was the first
of the Germanic people well settled to accept the new
faith. Ulfilas had led only a wandering tribe to
Christ. As the Roman Empire was decaying its
vast power became more and more centered in the
Emperors, as the senate and officials of every grade
lost the power held by them before. Into the place
of these deposed men the clergy stepped. As the
wreck and confusion increased these churchmen

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 17
seemed providentially to meet the needs of the times,
introducing a beneficent control of matters and a
direction of progress that were touched by a kind
lier spirit than the old ways, since they ruled more
by persuasion and high example than by brutal
force common in that age.
In the despair of the Roman people the Christians
were alone hopeful, being confident of the care of
the Heavenly Father, and with assurance of blessed
life after this one, were not in despair regarding
life here. Even when monasteries and churches
were destroyed the clergy remained to be rallying
centers for renewed efforts. In those dreadful cen
turies the church was the most permanent institution,
and its clergy were set to meet the most important de
mands arising amidst the confusion. Princes used
them as envoys. Christianity met those incoming
hordes of strong Teutonic peoples in England, finally
leading them all to that faith.
But to the student of history it brings a pang of
regret that in the contact of Christianity with
heathenism it lost a degree of its simplicity and
apostolic purity. Sometimes the sayings of the
Fathers were substituted for those of the Master.
Some of the clergy had deteriorated, ignorance as a
plague prevailed, crimes even that chill the blood
were not unknown among them, imposture was prac
ticed in reputed miracles, the bishops clutched riches
and power, and growing away from the people often
assumed a state and dominancy far alien from the
gentle Galilean.
While these excrescences and others upon the

18 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
church were injurious to it, they were not fatal. It
offered many ameliorations of spirit and material
conditions. The missionaries brought to the Anglo-
Saxon a larger, better knowledge of industries, set
ting at work higher social and economic conditions
of their converts. This influence in the interminable
wars among the little kingdoms was mostly for
peace and amity. The weak were protected, the
poor relieved, the slaves set free. The monasteries
were the places of agricultural industry, seats of
learning, and they possessed about all the literature
and literary spirit of the times.
The missionaries found a Germanic people almost
untouched by extraneous influences, who had during
the centuries in England developed their racial pe
culiarities by themselves. Into such strong soil the
seeds of the gospel fell. No attempt was made to
gain converts by the sword. Not one Anglo-Saxon
prince did the part of Charlemagne with the Old
Saxons. Those deep-souled pagans in the Octarchy
were not insensible to the grand truths of the gos
pel. The new faith protected the lowly and lifted
them up, threw a shielding hand over the weak, stood
stoutly against the aggressions of the lordly ones, all
of which aided in gaining a hold upon the affections
of the people.
The conversion of the island was not cataclysmic.
Nearly three generations passed before it was ac
complished. Even then many of the old customs
and beliefs remained, the use of charms, amulets, and
incantations persisted among the people, while some
of the pagan festivals, slightly changed and given a

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 19
new name, were carried forward. The Celtic part
of the west, thronging in at the north from Ireland
through lona, did most noble work. A larger share
of England was led to the new faith by them —
Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex
in its second turning, and lastly Sussex, all owed
their conversion mostly to those rare Celtic toilers.
Differences between the missionaries direct from
Rome and those from the north were certain to
arise. The form of the tonsure, the mode of bap
tism, the date of Easter, were some of those issues.
It was deemed best to seek a final adjustment of
the matter and a conference at the call of Oswald
met at the monastery of Whitby.
Scotland's three great bishops to Northumbria,
Aidan, Finan, and Colman, whose labors covered
thirty years, wrought a mighty revolution in the
religious life in Northumbria and beyond. It
seemed for a time as though these devoted mission
aries would impose their high spirit upon all
England. Their vows of poverty were kept, their
travels over all the country were tireless, the hills
and fens and the poor and ignorant were everywhere
reached by their teaching and preaching. Even the
head monastery at Lindisfarne was, during their
time only a group of low, poor buildings, at which
even the king as he came there to worship had to
put up with the fare and entertainment of the ab
stemious monks. The whole care of those teachers,
says Bede, was to serve God, not the world, to feed
the soul, not the belly. A devotion to the needs
of the people, and a persistent use of the limited op-

20 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
portunities in hand were most charming. Their
high morality, their superb passion for humanity,
their simple trust in the Heavenly Father, their
deep knowledge of the Scriptures, and small reliance
upon the papacy, combined to foretell a rich fruit
age of noble Christian lives.
Students in great numbers, especially during the
decades preceding the Conference of Whitby, flocked
to Ireland from Northumbria and from other Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms. The schools established in that
island were the best, doubtless, at that time in
Europe, and thousands of young men from many
parts went there as a result of the awaking of in
tellect caused by the acceptance of Christianity.
Says a historian, "When continental Europe and
even Britain were being submerged by hordes of
pagan Teutons, Ireland, out of reach of those
waves of paganism, was building up good schools,
which for centuries were bright beacons of culture
and Christianity." These various schools had hun
dreds of teachers and thousands of students.
Then, besides these renowned places of enlighten
ment, local teachers, anchorites, were scattered
throughout the country, each one attracting pupils
to his lonely cell. All Ireland seemed a vast univer
sity. From these seats of culture monks and
teachers by hundreds returned to England, often
becoming potent factors in the conversion of their
kindred. They did not stop with Christianizing
the island but pushed across the narrow seas to the
continent, hosts of them, both Celtic and Anglo-
Saxon, doing heroic, martyr work in leading the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 21
western moving people there to accept the new
faith. The names of Columban, Gall, and Kilian,
of Wilfred, Boniface, and Willibald, will always
shine brightly in the annals of missionary zeal and
self-sacrifice. For four centuries those schools
were the glory of Ireland, and the labors of their
students form a surprising chapter in the progress
of those obscure centuries.
The prelates to this date, about 645, had all
been foreigners but about this time several bishops
were made of the English race. The pope deter
mined to send to England for archbishop one who
would be free from local animosities and the friction
not wholly obliterated from the various dioceses.
Theodore, a Greek from Tarsus, Cilicia, the native
city of the Apostle Paul, was sent as archbishop of
Canterbury, with Hadrian as a helper, whom in
deed the pope chose for the principal place before
naming Theodore, but who would not accept the
high office, deeming himself unworthy of it. These
two set ardently at work to correct the evils which
had crept into the English church. Theodore soon
visited all the territory held by the Anglo-Saxons,
being the first archbishop whose sway was thus
widely acknowledged. He and Hadrian set up a
school at Canterbury to which many students flocked
from all parts of the land. In this school were
taught the Scriptures, and church rules, as also
Latin and Greek, arithmetic, poetry and astronomy.
Forty or fifty years afterwards, Bede knew some
of these pupils of Hadrian and Theodore who could
speak the Latin and Greek as readily as their own

22 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
English tongue. The labors of Theodore were
more direction than construction, since he used his
authority mostly to arrange the dioceses by which
he gave form to the episcopate, and helped forward
greatly the division of the country into parishes.
In these matters his work is perpetuated to this day.

CHAPTER III
With the increasing influence of the religious life
great men began to arise who had determining force
upon the whole life of the awakening Anglo-Saxon.
The church instead of the royal families gave them
to the world. Contemporary for some time with
Theodore was Wilfred, a native of England. Be
ginning public life as a courtier, he changed his
purpose at a time of dangerous sickness to that of
the monastic life. After studying in England he
went to Rome, spending a year in that center of
culture and ecclesiastical life. Returning to Eng
land he was given land on which he founded the
monastery of Ripon. Into this monastery the
scholarly Wilfred was careful to put a library, one
of the choice books being a copy of tl\e Bible writ
ten on purple vellum in letters of gold. Being
made bishop of Northumbria he sought his consecra
tion in Gaul instead of accepting it from English
prelates. His high spirit and ostentatious display
of retinue and dress like a king, and priestly inter
ference in the domestic matters of King Egfrid
of Northumbria, caused intense opposition to him.
Theodore, the archbishop, in Wilfred's absence,
divided the Northumbrian diocese into three parts,
consecrating bishops for each and appointing them
to oversight. An appeal to Rome was vain and
Wilfred fled to the South Saxons, leading many of
them to the cross. Although he and Theodore had
23

24 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
much friction, that prelate before his death sought
reconciliation with Wilfred. After a most remark
able life of toil, conflict, success, and high purpose,
he died in the minster of St. Andrew, Orundle, of
great age and honor.
Benedict Biscop, a companion of Wilfred to Rome
when both were young, was used by Theodore in
founding a school at Canterbury, later erecting the
monastery at Wearmouth and one at Jarrow.
Both were schools for priests, the latter to be im
mortalized by the life and work of the historian
Bede. Biscop was ardent in teaching in his monas
teries, bringing invaluable books from Rome for his
libraries. He sought pictures also, and relics for
his English houses. Though not a prelate his in
fluence was wide and high, and his work in the
scholarly line was nobly perpetuated in the Vener
able Bede.
Another great man whose life lends luster to that
age was Cuthbert, also of Northumbria. He was
made abbot of Melrose, but his sense of respon
sibility was so high that it would not permit him
to rot in his cloister, and he went out among the
people of that locality, especially to the small vil
lages and lonely mountain regions, preaching to
the rustic population. Having been sent to
Lindisfarne he there became a real anchorite, for,
preparing a cell on a neighboring island, he built
a wall about it so high that he could see out of
it only upward toward the sky. In this place, made
sacred by miracles, he spent his days in prayer
and meditation. After serving two years as a

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 25
bishop he retired again to the islet Fame to meet the
quiet end for which he looked. In the succeeding
ages when the Danes were ravaging England, his
sacred bones were hurried away from Lindisfarne,
and after being carried here and there in a most
remarkable pilgrimage, finally were deposited in
Durham Cathedral, where they repose to-day.
During this period a great missionary spirit arose
among the Anglo-Saxons similar to that a hun
dred years before among the Celts. Wilfred, on
one of his journeys to Rome, was detained a winter
in Friesland, where he led many of the nobles and
others to accept Christianity. There is no evi
dence that these gains were preserved. About 690,
Willibrord, an Englishman, with eleven companions
went to the continent, visiting Pippin, Duke of
Gaul, who had recently conquered the Frieslanders
and who permitted Willibrord to go preaching
among them. Two other English priests, brothers,
called from their complexion White Hewald and
Black Hewald, being seized with the same spirit,
passed from Ireland to the continent in order to
go among the Old Saxons. Stopping on the con
fines of that country, they were treacherously mur
dered by the village reeve, who suspected foul pur
poses on their part. Their bodies were secured by
Pippin and buried in the church at Cologne.
While Willibrord went to Rome after relics and
other aids to use in naming and consecrating his
churches, his companions in Friesland selected one
of their number, Swidbert, to go to Britain for con
secration as bishop of the Frisians, and who return-

26 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ing preached with success among the Boructuarians.
After more years and more success among the
Frisians, Willibrord was sent by Pippin to Rome,
to be created archbishop of that people. Down to
739 this noble missionary toiled on, building
churches, enlarging his work, and creating bishops.
The north of Holland was led to Christ by Adel-
bert of royal Northumbrian blood. Bavaria and
Gueldres were also enlightened by Anglo-Saxon mis
sionaries. But the one who is justly called the
apostle of the Germans was Winfred, a West
Saxon, better known by his later name, Boniface.
Like so many engaged in this missionary movement
to the continent, he was of gentle blood. Hearing
of Willibrord's work, he joined him at Utrecht,
diligently laboring with him three years, and was
desired by Willibrord to remain and be his succes
sor, but the ardent monk who had brought his com
mission to the Germans from Rome chose to push
into the interior of that pagan country among the
Hessians and Old Saxons. This was about 718.
Through the varied limitations of native poverty,
the stern climate and the caprices of the pagans,
he persisted and saw thousands converted. Called
to Rome he came back archbishop and made Mentz
his headquarters. His authority also extended
over the French clergy, among whom he introduced
many sadly needed reforms. As his work expanded
Boniface sent eager call to England for helpers,
and they came, men and women, some of them to
seal their devotion with their lives. Schools and
monasteries were established and bishops con-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 27
secrated. The monastery of Fulda stood as a noble
companion of Luxeuil and St. Gall. Having grown
to an old man, Boniface, burning for the salvation
of other peoples, went among the West Frisians
and when about to baptize a large company of
converts, he and his companions were suddenly set
upon by an armed band of natives and all slain.
Seventeen years later, Willebad, a Northumbrian
priest, landed at the very spot of this massacre,
and being welcomed by the natives, was able to
reach grandest results and turn the people almost
totally to the new way. Besides this he pushed his
labors beyond, to the Ems, Weser and Elbe. Later
the same spirit impelled Anglo-Saxon missionaries
to bring the people of Norway and Sweden to
Christ, and later still, those of Denmark.
In accordance of the beliefs in miracles, visions
and wonders, held at that time by the church in all
parts of Europe, the early missionaries to England
inculcated the belief in these providences, and by
them the religious life was most deeply affected.
Under their old cult the pagan Anglo-Saxons had
been accustomed to look for prodigies and wonders,
so that their minds were in receptive condition for
the beliefs in them under the new faith. Augustine,
as the test of his supremacy over the early British
church, resorted to a miracle, healing a blind man,
though suspiciously one of his own people. Pope
Gregory warned Augustine against appealing too
much to miracles. The great historian, Bede, who
has given the world nearly all that is known of
England in those early years, down to his death

28 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
in 731, placed the utmost confidence in those reputed
wonders, recording them with a natural simplicity
and unquestioning confidence that are most charm
ing. By the orders from Rome no church or monas
tery was deemed properly constituted unless it held
some relics of the saints. However at a council
of Colquith where representative churchmen were
gathered from all parts of the country, it was de
cided, contrary to the Nicene Council, that a church
could be consecrated without relics of the saint for
whom it was named. A figure of the saint might
be drawn upon the wall or on a board. The re
mains of the apostles were called upon to furnish
vast quantities of relics, and the cross of Jesus was
also most prolific. A gold key made from the
chains of Peter and Paul was sent by the pope to
the wife of Oswald, and the wonder is if the devout
lady would not ask how those chains were changed
to gold. Then as the sainted ones in England be
gan dying off, their bodies and bones were most
eagerly sought and carefully preserved, to give
sanctity and miracle-working power to some founda
tion. The value set upon such uncanny relics can
be surmised from the care of Cuthbert's miracle-
working bones carried for years from one place to
another by the devoted monks lest they should fall
into the hands of the pagan Danes and be lost.
The bones of Oswald, having been rescued from the
battle field by his niece, were brought to the
monastery of Bardney where they wrought many
miracles, as did the dust from them. The fame of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 29
these bones reached Ireland and Germany where
relics of the sainted king were sought and used for
their miraculous power.
Visions were common as well as miracles, and
these were thought to be granted often in connec
tion with the death of some one prominent in the
church. The noble Chad deemed himself warned
of approaching death in a vision of heavenly songs
descending to the oratory of his cathedral at Lich
field. The burial place of the abbess was des
ignated by a great light let down from heaven.
As her death drew nigh, her assistant saw a radiant
human body taken from the monastery and drawn
up to heaven by golden cords. The lame and blind
were healed at the grave of this abbess. While
Edwin before coming to the throne of Northumbria
was a fugitive, a tall old man laying his hand upon
the discouraged king's head, assured him of his
kingdom and called upon him, when his vision was
fulfilled, to accept the faith of Christ.
It can be understood how the princes and nobles
should, with their better information and wider
contact with the great world, easily be turned from
the worship of idols to the worship of the spiritual
creator of the universe. But to the ignorant com
mon people nominally following their leaders in the
movement, many of the old ways clung most
tenaciously. Even a king illustrated this who had
an altar to Christ and one to Woden in the same
temple. In place of the feasts under the old cult,
joyous Christian festivals were encouraged. The
horse slain as a sacrifice to the old gods was re-

30 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
placed by a bullock upon the meat of which the
converted people feasted, thankful to the Great
Giver of food and other blessings. The names of
the week were shaped after the gods just deserted,
and from an old worship of the sun and moon.
The Easter festival probably took the place of a
festival in honor of Eastre, a northern goddess.
The holiday season was one of special jollity under
the old ways and this was superseded by the Christ
mas and New Year festivals. A feast held at mid
summer in honor of Baldur, one of the most beauti
ful conceptions of the northern mind, was replaced
by that of St. John Baptist. This god in several
ways prefigured Christ in his spotless character as
well as in his death and resurrection. At times of
great distress or danger it was not unknown that
the people turned to their old divinities. When
the yellow plague was causing dismay in Essex,
King Sighere and his people with him relapsed to
the old idols, and Juraraan, Bishop of Lichfield, was
sent there to win them back to Christianity. Some
of the superstitions have persisted to the present,
and even now many persons prefer to see the moon
over the right shoulder instead of the left.
It was the glory of the early missionaries that
they set up schools in which to educate the young.
At all the great stations for evangelization schools
at an early day were instituted, primarily indeed
to make monks or nuns, but even that restricted
object was a noble beginning of the culture of the
race. Christianity was causing a superb uplift of
the Anglo-Saxon mind. The example of Gaul,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 31
lying so close to the island, told upon the education
of the new converts. The Celtic monks, as they
evangelized Northumbria and much of the country
beyond, moved by the rich influence of the grand
educational spirit in Ireland, everywhere estab
lished schools for the young people of England.
The worth of these schools was seen in the great
number of learned men that arose in the royal
families and in the church, while the great intel
lectual epoch of Northumbria presents one of the
brightest views of all the Anglo-Saxon period.
After yielding the high intellectual fruits so con
spicuous through two or three generations, a sad
mental decay set in that closed the epoch. It may
be difficult to determine all the causes of this na
tional decay, but some active forces can be seen,
one being the accumulated enrichment of the monas
tic houses, in which the monks could live without
the manual labor of the preceding generations,
since they now used hired help, serfs, and even
slaves, to do what was once their glory and elevat
ing virtue. Then the whole of the Octarchy had
been nominally converted, so that the pressing in
centive ever present with the early monks as they
were confronted by more or less defiant or uncon-
quered paganism made less demand for the spirit
of Augustine, Aidan and Wilfred. So many of
the nobles and princes, as well as persons of lower
grade had turned monks that Bede feared the neces
sary men would not be found in case of national
danger to defend the realm, and this fear found
good ground when later the stout Danes fell upon

32 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
decadent England. Alfred the Great was presaged.
The intertribal wars, "the war of kites and crows,"
were the product rather than the cause of the decay,
and yet those conflicts must have accelerated the
downward slide. Along with this decadence came
abandonment of schools, and the education even of
the monks sank so low in the north, formerly so re
nowned for its learning, that few could render their
Latin church service into the vernacular, and not
one, Alfred somewhere says, could be found south
of the Thames who could do that.
In the monasteries, in spite of their imperfec
tions, through the four centuries and a half of the
religious life previous to the Conquest, abode many
principal elements of progress, in education and in
other ways of man's higher nature. These institu
tions in the early Anglo-Saxon period, and through
much of its course, must not be judged by what
they became in later generations, or by what they
were when after long centuries Henry Eighth sup
pressed them altogether as a menace to English
civilization. At first they were stations of self-sup
porting missions similar to those established in the
nineteenth century by some enthusiastic missiona
ries. Thoy had long existed on the island before
the advent of Augustine, and among the native
Welsh and Scots and also in Ireland. They were
founded everywhere on the continent. It was there
fore no innovation for Augustine at once to begin
their establishment. The monks were missionaries
and must have a home.
The first thought of the missionaries would be

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 33
a house to cover them, and food and raiment.
These they must principally obtain for themselves,
hence the community was industrial as well as re
ligious. Many of the early monks to England
were from Italy and Gaul, where the various in
dustries were much more advanced than in England,
so that a portion of the benefits brought by them
was an advance of industries. The debt due to
those monks by the race for these gifts is a mighty
one, for many industries that later have aided most
in the financial supremacy of England were either
taught in a better way by the monks or were first
introduced by them. They drained marshes and
coaxed the fens to produce most abundant crops,
while sandy heaths blossomed under their touch.
Roads were built by them, as well as bridges and
dikes and canals, while havens for ships and light
houses to guide the sailors were the result of
their foresight.
Even the foundations of the nuns were centers of
industry, not alone in studies, since besides the
lighter work of embroidery, sewing and housekeep
ing, they frequently were the scenes of agricultural
activity, building and other heavy labors. A
legend runs that Earswida, with the blood of both
Hengist and Clovis in her veins, erecting a monas
tery at Folkstone was sought in marriage by a
pagan suitor whose hopes her father encouraged.
But she utterly refused the proposal. One day, so
reads the story, the lover coming to press his suit,
found her superintending the erection of the mon
astery, and in their discussions she challenged him

34 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
to secure by the help of his gods the lengthening of
a rafter cut too short, and when he failed it was
lengthened by her prayers.
Manual labor was made respectable, for before
it was delegated to the lowest classes, but under
the teaching and example of the monks became a
heritage of the race. Thus Coelfrid, though noble
born, a wide traveler and highly educated, became,
at the monastery of Ripon, the baker to the chap
ter, conning his lessons while heating the oven.
Benedict Biscop's cousin, Easterwine, a king's
thegn, shared the labors of the monks in his mon
astery, working in the garden, kitchen and bake
house as well as at threshing, winnowing and milk
ing, and continued these labors after being elected
abbot. These things were deemed spiritually
meritorious. Then such examples of their nobles
and of their spiritual teachers could not fail in ex
erting a widespread and beneficent influence upon
the people generally. The showing of the Domes
day Book is that the lands of church property were
better cultivated than others. Lingard says that
not more than one-sixth of the inmates of a mo
nastic establishment were kept at religious duties,
the others being busy at various industries, as hus
bandmen, mechanics, herdsmen, and at other labors.
Soames says there were four branches of the monks.
First, ordained, to minister in sacred things, per
manently domesticated in a monastery. Second,
anchorites or hermits, living sometimes with the
others, again alone in a cell. Third, sarabaites,
adopting tonsure, but not under the rule, living

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 35
three or four in a house by themselves, later
degenerating to a reproach of the monastery.
Fourth, wandering monks, claiming great sanctity,
but lazy, vile hypocrites.
If a great debt is due the monks for industrial
improvement brought by them to the Germanic
people whom they were leading to the new faith,
another debt is due them for their work in the lit
erary field. In this they were both conservitors and
producers. As Rome was the repository of the
classics of Italy and Greece, it could not but hand
them over to such students as the old monks were.
Representing as these men did, amidst the decay of
the empire, something of the new spirit of civiliza
tion, they kept alive in some degree the traditions
of the love and respect for those old classics. As
the monks scattered over western Europe, they
carried Homer and Aristotle, Cicero and Vergil
in the priceless manuscript form along with the
Scriptures and missals to their new home. They
preserved these classics and much other ancient
literature from the destruction of the former
civilization by the northern peoples.
Not only this, but they were the only historians
through those periods of dismay and gloom, whose
writings have come down to us. The chronicles,
lives of saints, annals, histories full of impossible
miracles and legends, are now of unspeakable worth
to the historian. Had these various writings of the
old monks not been preserved, the Middle Ages could,
more truthfully than now, be called the dark ages.
The nuns in some of the Anglo-Saxon monasteries.

36 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
true to their helpful natures, were often busy copy
ing manuscripts, ornamenting them most ex
quisitely, nor did they stop with the mechanical
part but learned letters to rich results, studying
the classics, the Scriptures and the Fathers. Latin
was a favorite with them, and in it they frequently
carried on correspondence. They also pursued
Greek, poetry and grammar.
Of vast moment to the religious life which the
people were developing by the aid of the monks
and the monasteries, was such study of the Scrip
tures as was followed in those foundations. The
language in which their copies to study were writ
ten, was the Latin, though paraphrased into the
vernacular and explained in it. In the early times
the monks did much preaching, their most common
themes being the Master and his teachings and mir
acles. Some of the monks like Bede put portions
of the Scriptures into Anglo-Saxon speech, even
that royal student, Alfred, so rendering portions
of them, though these fragments have unfortunately
been lost. The Scotic monks coming from lona and
Ireland were especially close students of those
oracles, doubtless superior in this respect to the
monks from the continent.

CHAPTER IV
Most of the art taking root during this epoch
in Anglo-Saxon civilization was introduced by the
monks. It was poor, since a thousand years of de
cay from Phidias, Apelles and JEschylus could not
leave the noble arts in any richness. But among
the inmates of those old monasteries were germinat
ing the seeds of most modern art. The work of
Benedict Biscop at Wearmouth, when seeking a bet
ter stone building than the workmen of England
could rear, he brought masons from Gaul to meet
his aspirations, was prophecy of the Gothic mag
nificence which embellishes the island, and it looked
forward toward the genius of Sir Christopher
Wren. The imported glaziers of Benedict also
looked toward the matchless windows and scrolls
and orioles made eight centuries ago that are the
despair of modern glaziers. The paintings he set
up in his Wearmouth monastery were the first of
those that in long course are now enriching the
museums, churches and galleries. One cannot look
upon the manuscripts preserved in the cathedral
libraries and elsewhere, as fresh appearing as when
written, notice the perfection of every letter in its
peculiar structure of those centuries, linger lov
ingly upon the embellishments and the illuminated
capitals, and see the faultlessly made vellum, with
out feeling that those old monks who laboriously
37

38 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
wrought them as a work of love, were superior
artists. Music, the helpful handmaid of devotion, was
practiced from the start, the expanding work of the
church, the building of cathedrals, the growing
ornateness of the service, as well as the deepening
culture of the people, calling for still more elabo
rate music. For this purpose the precentors of
skilled musical powers brought from the continent,
taught chanting and choral measures in the service.
Benedict Biscop, of refined soul, led in this enlarge
ment, as did the broad visioned Wilfred, who had
music taught so widely that the peasants of his
diocese mingled the Gregorian chant with their
labors. The use of bars to facilitate reading the
notes was first introduced by the monks. Their
old manuscript piece of music with the heavy notes
an inch in length are now curious things to look
upon. Great organs added their profound intona
tions to the devotions of the people. One erected
in the tenth century at Winchester had twelve bel
lows above and fourteen below, worked alternately
by seventy strong men impelling each other to put
forth their utmost strength. It had four hundred
pipes, the keyboard being directed by two friars.
Its sound must have been deafening.
To Benedict and Wilfred was due the importa
tion of many arts that have never ceased their
beneficent ministries to soul and body in all the his
tory of the race. Embroidery of rich patterns,
glass making with colors of incomparable richness,
gold work of such beauty that it was the envy of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 39
the continent as far as Italy, and painting, though
of stiff figures, were a beginning, along with other
embryonic benefits, full of rich promise and help
to the people emerging into the light of civilization.
The amount of precious metals used shows not
only the vast wealth held by the kings but in the
lavish use of it also an expression of their religious
life. Thus it is said that King Ina building a new
church at Glastonbury put into an altar two hun
dred sixty-four pounds of gold besides much into
the vessels, while the covers of the gospel had
twenty pounds. Images of the Lord, of Mary and
of the twelve apostles, were also of solid gold. Not
monks alone encouraged art, but Alfred and others
as well as Ina aided the culture and Christianization
of their people by art's ministries. Nor did the
converted Northmen wholly disdain to seek the up
lifting influence of art, in some instances seeking
restitution of works destroyed by their pagan pred
ecessors. There were certain ones among the Anglo-Saxons
as among all warlike peoples, who from natural rea
sons were not adapted to war. Lack of brawn or
lack of spirit might be the cause. To such the
priesthood of the new faith offered special oppor
tunities. To them the monasteries presented an
asylum, where in the peaceful cloisters they often
became even in the rough Anglo-Saxon period, most
influential members of the race. Culture made
them into monks, abbots, bishops and writers. It
is impossible to think of the Venerable Bede as a
warrior, but in the Jarrow cloister he wrought out

40 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
a vocation and a name with his pen that have only
one compeer in that whole epoch.
Besides ambitious and letter-loving students, the
monasteries attracted and gave shelter to the un
fortunate ones who were not competent for the stern
life of those times, or to those who had entered the
conflicts and had failed in them. In these the
monks saw special wards of Heaven, receiving them
and caring for them to whom they were called upon
to extend the lovingkindness of the Master. In
those times of commotion and overturning, many
helpless ones, women and children constantly de
prived of their natural protectors found in the
monasteries for women and in the monastic schools
for children safe, sheltering arms. In these ways
and many others, the monasteries were centers of
a charity that touched all classes, affording to the
rich careful and reliable opportunities for their
benefactions, and on the other hand offering to the
indigent relief from biting poverty and premature
death. Hexam became such a sanctuary for the
oppressed, the afflicted and the poor, that its asylum
was respected in the wars between the little king
doms, and the Scots were bafiled in their attempts
to slay the people of that community.
As if they were determined to carry the bless
ings of the new faith to all, the missionaries from
first to last sought the manumission of the slaves.
They bought the boys offered for sale, putting them
as pupils into their schools, and it was not unknown
that some of these unfortunate ones arose to high
places in ecclesiastical life. A brilliant example of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 41
this was when two hundred fifty slaves coming into
the hands of Wilfred by a grant to him of the Isle
of Wight, he freed them all and taught them the
new evangel. The clergy were always soliciting
the freedom of slaves from persons repentant or
dying. Such thralls as were overworked or were
compelled to work on Sunday were by council en
actment made free. The manumission was accom
plished before the altar of a church, and then the
action was sometimes written upon the fly leaf of
the church Bible. The victories of the new faith
shown in many ways among a people so strenuously
pagan but a few years before, is a marvel of history.
By the time of the Domesday Book only twenty-
five thousand slaves were reported in all England.
One of the grandest boons to the Anglo-Saxons
brought by the missionaries was a better social life.
The communities of monks, each with scores or
hundreds of them living in a brotherhood, subject
to a superior whose rule was not that of the sword
or royal blood but that of parental authority and
Christian fraternity, made a most vivid object les
son to the new people. It stirred a chord in their
natures profounder than that of the old ways.
The early missionaries, while associating with kings
and nobles, went also without shrinking into the
huts of serfs and slaves. The women soon learned
to trust and respect the clerics. Choice youths
full of promise were taken by them to their monas
tic schools from keeping cattle and swine, or from
other low walks of life, such youths becoming
priests and teachers like their preceptors. These

42 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
things were foundation laying, but among the
foundations upon which the Anglo-Saxon race has
built its greatness.
In time the jealousies between the tribal king
doms grew less and did not lead to so many wars
or to such ruthless ones. The sway of one arch
bishop over all England was suggestive of a bet
ter spirit. As time went on the irrepressible bit
terness of the native Britons toward their aggres
sors seems to have given way and those who like
Cadwalla would before join a pagan like Penda to
ruin Northumbria, now joined in a fraternal effort
to bring to Christ the remotest corners of heathen
territory. Parents who had been in the habit of
selling their children into slavery saw foreigners
come among them who rescued such children from
thralldom, educated them and placed them in posi
tions of honor and influence. Feuds, killings and
rapine were not fully stopped at once but had
diminishing frequency. Robbery and brigandage
grew less. Other crimes under the rule of penance
for them and in all possible cases, of restitution,
aided the movement toward better morals.
The position of the wife was more and more
elevated. The power of the husband over her as
well as over the remainder of the household was
directed by a milder spirit. No wife could be
lightly put away or infants any more be put to
death. Slaves must be treated leniently, or better
set at liberty, for slavery was an evil. The grim
fighters who had lived by rapine and war were
taught that these also were evils. Drunkenness and

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 43
gluttony must be atoned for by penance while fasts
must be entered upon to teach them control of their
passions and appetites.
The part that women played in the conversion of
the Saxons and in the consequent religious life forms
a most interesting passage in the history of the
people. It was Bertha, the Gallic princess, who
opened the way for Gregory to send Augustine and
his company on their first mission to Kent. Her
daughter, Ethelberga, went with similar results to
Northumbria. Reading backward in what was done in later
times it can be more than guessed that women too
were uplifted by the conversion of the kingdoms.
Certain it is that they were protected as never be
fore. Noble women began founding monasteries
for their sex which in time became numerous and
influential, offering such high advantages of culture
and pious activities that there was no longer need
of going to the Gallic monasteries either for school
ing or devotion. Daughters of the kings became
abbesses. Edward the Elder devoted three of his
daughters to the religious life. The women devoted
to a monastic life went through a neophytic course
covering several years, their last vows being re
ceived only by a bishop. Thus consecrated and
veiled they were called the spouses of Christ, for
having renounced all thought of marriage to men
they were thought to be indissolubly wedded to the
Lord. Owing to their relations to the Most High
while on earth, they were often accorded the liber
ties and attributes of exalted rank. Before their

44 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
final vows they must be of mature age, at least
twenty-five, must have the consent of their parents
to the important step, must promise obedience to
the bishop, and thus with prayer and benediction
be passed to the life of the nun.
As among the monks in their monasteries, full
social equality prevailed among the nuns, for
though they came from all ranks, royalty, nobility,
and ceorls, they were as sisters in the cloisters. It
sometimes happened that one whose rank before
taking the veil had been low, served as superior over
those whose social grade had been high, although
most of the abbesses and superiors of whom men
tion is made were of noble blood. Thus the sisters
of Cremhild and Brunehild became the Hildas and
Ebbas of the cloisters.
The women entering those monasteries can be
roughly grouped under three classes. First, those
who were dedicated for some special reason in their
babyhood; second, those who were married, but
under the teaching of the age sought greater holi
ness as recluses, their husbands in some cases being
willing, in others unwilling for them to take such
a step ; third, widows, who after the death of their
husbands, sought comfort, safety and devotion in
those houses. It cannot be surprising in a
tumultuous age like the Anglo-Saxon period that
weak women would freely use the protection offered
by such foundations, as well as to seek the quiet
opportunities of deep devotion. Queen Eanfleda,
the widow of Oswald of Northumbria, found a
refuge after the death of her husband in the mon-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 45
astery of Whitby where her own daughter was ab
bess, and under such inverted relations ended her
days in peace.
The first monastery founded for women was that
of Lyminge, Kent, built by Ethelburga, the widow
of Edwin. Her brother Eadbald gave her the land,
out of the income of which she built the monastery,
making it a refuge for many widows like herself.
In Wessex, at Winnbourne, was a community of
nuns that numbered no less than five hundred and
the abbess, Cuthberga, a daughter of King Ina,
sometimes had her hands full to control such a mass
of them. An under officer died who had become
offensive to the young members of the monastery,
and on her new-made grave they danced until it
sunk half a foot below the surface, for which offense
they were punished with three days' fasting and
continued prayers for the dead nun. The delight
ful writer, Aldhelm, in his metrical book on Virgins,
praises the nuns for their wide knowledge.
A class of monasteries had arisen in Gaul and
Ireland occupied by both men and women but
usually presided over by a woman. So successful
were these double monasteries, especially the one
at Chelles, Gaul, where Mildred and other Anglo-
Saxon women had been educated, that the island
kings desired similar ones among their people.
Soon a number of them were founded, the most
noted, perhaps, being that of Whitby, over which
the saintly Hilda presided. The opportunities
offered women by these various establishments called
many able minds to the front.

46 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Possibly the most distinguished by noble char
acter and high genius was Hilda, long time abbess
of Whitby. She was of royal Northumbrian blood
and until she heard the call at thirty years of age
to the conventual life, was subjected to the vicissi
tudes of court life. For a while she was in charge
of a small foundation, and then was transferred to
the larger one at Whitby on the coast, where Har
tlepool is now situated. Her monastery soon be
came a double one, growing to great size and
prominence. Her high powers of mind and heart
drew all the prominent people of that region to her,
royalty, nobility and clergy seeking conference and
counsel with her. Aidan was a frequent visitor.
She was as thoughtful of the lowly as of the exalted,
her keen insight and helpful spirit found out
Caedmon and gave him to the world of letters, her
pupils went out as priests and bishops, while her
monastery was a refuge for helpless men and
women, standing a moral lighthouse as it stood a
material one to the storm-tossed sailors of the
rough German Ocean. Her ability for organiza
tion and governing was not below that of the An
glo-Saxon kings of her age.
A woman, Ethelgiva, of royal birth and great
riches, went secretly to the cell of Dunstan and was
so impressed by his sanctity that she determined
to live and die near him and the church. This she
did, dedicating her money to God with Dunstan as
executor, which he used to build the church in that
place in much more elegant form. Her course was
but typical of a spirit that grew more and more

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 47
upon the Anglo-Saxon people. Pilgrimages took
the place of duty to friends and country, penances
and mortifications paid the price of distressing sins,
vows were more than oracles of God. Alfred swore
the Danes upon relics when making a treaty with
them, and Duke William bound Harold when in
Normandy by an oath above a chest of saint's
relics. Another form their devotion took was making
pilgrimages to Rome, and even to Jerusalem. The
journey to the continent, across Gaul, over the
perilous Alps, and through Italy, was wearisome,
costly, and full of danger. But multitudes entered
upon it. An institution termed a Saxon school
was founded in Rome by Ina, King of Wessex when
on his pilgrimage thither, which was really an asy
lum for the pilgrims from England. Alfred's
father and that king himself aided it, as did many
other royal benefactors. When burned it was re
built by English money. Not only did royalty and
clergy go to Rome, but nobles, abbesses, princesses,
nuns, and multitudes of the commons crowded the
roads across the continent to do penance, even with
such a rugged journey, visit holy places and pray
in them, and seek absolution from the pope. Some,
even abdicating kings, made the city, so full of
sacred places and holy memories, a refuge till death
came to them. Cadwalla of Wessex, converted,
went to Rome, in 688, to be baptized by the pope
and soon died in that holy city. On these pilgrim
ages many lost their lives ; others were beset by
robbers and gave up all they possessed, not a few

48 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
died of dieases contracted in a strange climate and
by exposure, while others were harried by the Gallic
rulers through whose petty domains they must pass.
Yet with these possible dangers to persons and
means the stream of devotees was swollen for gen
erations.

CHAPTER V
It seemed during these generations the Scripture
prophecy was fulfilled that kings and queens should
be nursing fathers and mothers to the kingdom of
God. The devoutness and abundant liberality of
Ethelbert, the first royal convert, were followed by
many of the Anglo-Saxon royalty. Rejoicing in
the new faith themselves they diligently sought the
conversion of their people, not only pouring out
their wealth, but often doing personal work to this
end. Oswald, acting as interpreter for Aidan,
shows this spirit. Aefrid, another Northumbrian
king, having been a pupil in the monastery of lona,
was a most hearty patron of letters and of the
church as was Wilfred. The devotion of Alfred
was deep and personal, and he labored nobly in an
age of decadence to establish the church institutions.
He himself led, unconsciously no doubt, in a trend
away from ceremonialism toward a simpler form of
vital piety.
A strange movement, it seem,", now took place
among the royal people since numbers of them,
abdicating their regal powers, sought salvation as
monks or as pilgrims. The vicious wars that pre
vailed even after the acceptance of the new faith
could readily join with other distractions of the
epoch and drive men to seek a quiet life in the cell.
Thus Ceolwulf of Northumbria, after reigning a
number of years, grew tired of his responsibilities,
49

60 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
and assuming the habit of a monk, passed the re
maining thirty years of his life in the monastery
of Lindisfarne. In a similar spirit, Sebbi of the
East Saxons, after reigning thirty years, assumed
the garb of the monk, and when dying would per
mit only the Bishop of London to be present, lest
in dying he should show some sign of suffering and
thus disgrace his Woden blood.
Some of them imbibed a liking for letters, seeking
in the life of a recluse time and quiet to pursue their
love of books. This Eadbert, the successor of the
monk Ceolwulf, did, for after remaining on the
throne twenty years, he abdicated, and retiring
among the books at York which he had helped to
collect, ended his days among them. Several other
kings took similar courses. No less than three of
the kings of Wessex did so. Centwine, after reign
ing nine years, from 676 to 685, retired to a
cloister, and Cadwalla, a pagan until he was thirty,
recalling the teachings of Wilfred when the latter
was in exile, went to Rome to be baptized and
shortly after died in that city. Ina, after a reign
of thirty-seven years, during which he conquered
Cornwall, was persuaded by his wife to adopt the
monastic habit, and going to Rome accompanied by
her as a companion and nurse, died there, and his
wife returned to Wessex to enter a monastery.
The new faith, even if but partially comprehended,
was already getting a mighty hold upon the race.
Turketul, Eadred's chancellor, having thus served
under Athelstan and Edmund, at length turned
monk, sought devastated Croyland, rebuilt it.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 51
secured a protecting charter from the king, and
spent the last twenty-seven years of his life as ab
bot. Among the changes wrought by the conversion
of this people, those in the matter of government
were not the least, for the missionaries at once took
a prominent place in directing the kings and witans,
and while introducing new principles, retained most
of the old laws and customs. The superior knowl
edge of the monks, the high place they assumed in
the kingdoms, added to the new relations that
Christianity introduced, caused them to be greatly
depended upon by the people for direction in the
large racial life. The ideal of a state whose laws
were thoroughly interblended with the teach
ings of the gospel was more nearly reached in
those little kingdoms than has ever been done
elsewhere since Christianity has been offering
its beneficent force to humanity. As soon as
Ethelbert was converted the laws began showing a
change ; the former laws, sacred, unchangeable, held
enshrouded in mystery, were kept in memory by the
lawman but now, together with the new ones, were
committed to writing and thus lost their mystery
and for reason could be changed. These were prob
ably the first laws reduced to written form by any
of the Germanic race. The king became sacred as
the Lord's anointed, as such obtaining his power
from the Deity, and was to rule with justice, mercy
and goodness. In the coronation oath he promised
to see that the church and Christian people pursued
peace at all times, that he would forbid rapacity

52 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
and every form of iniquity, that in all judgment
he would enforce peace and equity. Far toward
the Conquest the king still assumed to be God's
vicegerent upon the earth, being delegated to keep
peace in his realm. The church and state seldom
came into collision, but when that did occur it was
to find the clergy as champions against the kings
for the good of the people.
The archbishop and other clergy assumed a con
stantly increasing position in state affairs. The
bishop and other leaders were given a place in the
Witenagemot, the old gathering of the wise men,
alongside the nobility, and from their superior learn
ing soon became most influential. Laws coming from
these gatherings were both secular and ecclesiastical,
and no great distinction existed between them. The
bishops at certain epochs, so great were their pow
ers, could pronounce a land grant worthless. Char
ters were signed by the bishops, abbots, abbesses, and
others, as well as by royalty, and the legal machinery
showed the legal presence of their hand. The shire
moot was not complete without it held the bishops as
well as the ealdormen, and the hundred was attended
by the parish priest. In church councils kings and
princes took part, and the legislation emanating
from synods showed alike the work of royalty and
clergy. The naming of archbishop and bishop was
frequently done by the king in the Witenagemot.
The church and state without any formal action of
constitutional process were united. On the death of
a bishop or abbot, the king could direct men to oc
cupy their lands until a new grant was made. Cases

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 53
of administration were constantly arising relating to
the clergy and to morals in which the bishops exer
cised high judicial powers. Penitentials, notably
those of Theodore, were an active means of discipline
against immorality or drunkenness. As time passed
the clergy were often found in arms leading the mil
itary forces from their estates, or even large di
visions of the king's army in defense of the nation,
and their influence toward the latter part of this
period, being about the only permanent element of
the shifting society, operated largely in the changes
which finally enabled royalty in one kingdom to ob
tain the supremacy over all the kingdoms of the Oc
tarchy. It was not unknown that the Archbishop of
Canterbury performed regal duties, both in govern
ing the realm of Kent and in forming an alliance with
another ruler. The supremacy of the archbishop
was far wider than that of any king till the Anglo-
Saxon period approached an end. England's great
statesmen in clerical robes began arising, Dumstan,
Odo, the precursors of Pole and Wolsey.
In the parishes, too, was to be found the blending
of the civil and spiritual, as well as in the wider af
fairs of the state. Here the union of church and
state came in touch with the common people much
more than in the higher walks of the national life.
The village community followed in the early settled
life of the Teutonic people, was taken to England in
a modified form, and the need in such a compact com
munity of a spiritual guide, after conversion to
Christianity, placed there a monk at first, and a secu
lar priest, later, more or less permanently. The

54 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
lord's manor with his large company of retainers and
laborers also formed a large body of people calling
for the same spiritual oversight, and these two con
ditions made the parish that peculiar unit of re
ligious life. Theodore, seeing the worth of this ar
rangement greatly helped forward the organization
of the island into parishes. Sometimes several town
ships were thrown into one parish if each was too
small to support a priest, for to him tithes and dues
were paid.
A vast amount of local legislation was done, the
parish and township combining in their rights and
duties. Vestrymen's meetings attended to a multi
tude of matters arising in the parish, and through
that the church came in its spirit of love and wis
dom into close relations with the common people. It
is no wonder then, as time went on, that the religious
life became more powerful among the masses than
the national or racial life. Thus with the Anglo-
Saxon common man the devotion to his parish, to his
priest and to his pious duties, arose above those of
his nation and he cared less who was his king, North
umbrian, West Saxon or Dane, than for the immedi
ate duties of his religion. Throughout the Anglo-
Saxon period it was a time of transition. The tribal
spirit, dominant when the tribe of the fierce warriors
effected a lodgment upon the islands, slowly yielded
to that which gradually formed the Octarchy, while
later, this was giving way under the example and in
fluence of a unified church over all the island, so that
the small kingdoms were disintegrating to make way
in turn for one England.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 65
The church was a powerful instrument in helping
toward this goal and in forming a national sentiment.
The strong social feelings inherent in the race were
still more broadened by the new faith, while the
mighty assertion of personal freedom always to be
found in the Germanic people was also fostered by
the spirit and way of the church. Thus Edgar's
laws held that any man, as well poor as rich, was to
be worthy of folk-right. Edgar himself would judge
righteous dooms, that remission of "bot" should be
made as might be becoming before God and tolerable
before the world. His laws also caused a thegn
rendering unrighteous judgment to forfeit his
thegnhood. Out of the loyalty to his church and
the freedom it taught, the Englishman was to be
made a patriot. Free as a Christian, he was becom
ing ready to insist on being free as a citizen.
Of course only the beginnings of literary excel
lence could be expected of a people so recently led
out of crass heathenism, totally ignorant of letters
and possessing no written literature. Still they had
of old their poems, legends, and religious teachings
kept by their priests in oral form, somewhat as their
laws and customs of civil processes were kept by the
lawmen. Teachers and pupils were alike crude and
products could not be other than crude. The racial
genius began showing itself and produced a few real
gems, prophecy of future wealth, and since all the
teachers were ecclesiastics and the mighty impulse
the people were receiving was mostly of a religious
nature, it must follow that whatever of literary re
sults were produced would be of a religious nature.

56 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
The earliest gleam of literary genius arising in
those early generations was that of Cffidmon. A
convert directly from paganism in the early part of
the seventh century when the church was getting
only a fair start in Northumbria, he was attached to
Hilda's monastery at Whitby as a keeper of farm
stock. Under what he deemed to be a divine impulse
revealed to him in a dream, he began to compose
snatches of song upon Bible themes, and these, sub
mitted to the wise Hilda, were thought by her and
others to be of great merit. She had him changed
from the stable to the cloister, and sections of the
Scripture being read to the unlettered poet, he would
in due time render them into verse. In this way he
paraphrased many parts of the Scripture. In his
works there is true poetic fire, both epic and lyric,
and they glow everywhere with the religious fervor
likely to be in a highly poetic soul led from paganism
to Christianity. Through all the productions of
both the Old Testament and the New, Caedmon gives
noble expression to the religious life, and must have
stood as an exalted preacher of righteousness to his
countrymen in his own age and in those following.
People committed to memory and repeated those
strong Scripture paraphrases put into the vernacu
lar, coming from a stout Anglo-Saxon heart, and
they must have served better purposes for the king
dom of God than the monkish teachings of pious
legends, saints' lives and ceremonials.
One of the old pagan poems, Beowulf, was most
fortunately preserved, kept in memory, no doubt,
through many generations, to be put into written

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 5%
form in the seventh or eighth century by some ad
vanced thinker among the Northumbrian monks. In
this fine epic of more than three thousand lines the
hand of the Christian transcriber is distinctly seen,
for many references are made to Christian facts and
teachings, though the body of the poem is plainly
pagan. It is a wild, daring tale of war and blood
shed, of dragons and monsters, of loyal friendships
and noble self-sacrifice. The Christian teachings are
slipped in here and there as if this salt must be
sprinkled into the pagan epic to preserve it in an age
of other belief than that in which it was composed.
To have written out the bold pagan poem might have
been cried at as heresy in the monkish transcriber.
In the poem on the great battle of Bninanburh, in
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the sun is called "God's
candle bright," and in the prose insertion of this vic
tory of Athelstan over Anlaf leading a confederacy
of Scots, Welsh and Danes, it is said he had the vic
tory, "Christ Helping."
Praise by the historian must not be stinted for the
venerable Bede, who stands foremost of all the great
men of that epoch. His use of Latin in all the works
preserved does not permit us to know how his great
soul and intellect could have found expression in the
rugged Anglo-Saxon. He made a translation of
John's Gospel into the vernacular, pathetically work
ing on it with his amanuensis till his death day, but
that is now lost as well as all traces of his other
Anglo-Saxon work.
His reputation mainly rests upon his "Ecclesiastical
History," in which he begins with Britain when in-

58 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
vaded by Cassar and ends in 731, near the date of
his death. This monk, the product of the Anglo-
Saxon monastic life at its best period, the pupil of
Benedict Biscop, grown up in the monasteries of
Wearmouth and Jarrow, persisting in being a
teacher and a writer during his whole life, exercised
an exalted influence through his "Ecclesiastical His
tory," his "Life of Cuthbert" and other writings that
remain as a glorious monument to his heart and
brain. A hundred years later than Caedmon and directly
after Bede, flourished Cynewulf, the most prolific
poet of the Anglo-Saxon epoch, more cultured than
Caedmon and as good a master of the vernacular as
he was. There had been a century of progress in
the religious life, in the emergence from paganism
into the light of Christianity, and in the culture of
the general intellect. The spirit of Cynewulf's pro
ductions is thoroughly religious, his three principal
poems being "Christ," "Andreas," and "Elene."
Together they form a kind of Christian cycle.
Other poems and fragments have been assigned to
him. In all his writings Cynewulf was devout, seek
ing the light, and his poems, like those of Caedmon,
were learned by the people and promoted much re
ligious knowledge among them.
Following this time came the Danish irruptions
and the subversion of the seats of learning, and with
such loss, decay of the intellectual and spiritual life
which had in Northumbria and elsewhere made so fair
promise of great advancement.
Alfred the Great, standing head and shoulders

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 59
above all the other kings of the Anglo-Saxon period,
may be regarded also as the supremest representa
tion of the religious life in that epoch of whom we
have any knowledge. Coming to the throne of Wes
sex when his own kingdom had been attacked by the
Danes, and the remainder of the island terribly har
ried by them, when national decay consequent upon
these irruptions and other active forces was threat
ening the material, social and religious life of the
people, Alfred did so much to stay this coming in
like a flood that his name has a luster all its own.
In his early life he was attractive, pious, and al
though untaught of letters until he was twelve, the
story goes that he then set to work diligently to
learn, being impelled to it first by the gift from his
stepmother Judith of an Anglo-Saxon poem on con
dition that he or any one of his brothers learn to
read it.
His piety was the center of his being. Out of that
spirit came his patriotism, his high literary work, his
intense activity, his hopefulness and his wise states
manship. That piety showed itself in purity of life,
in habits of secret prayer in churches, at shrines and
other private places, and he always carried a small
book in his bosom containing prayers and other helps
to his devotions. He was not satisfied with the mere
routine of monkish devotions, but through prayer
and the Scriptures pushed close to personal contact
with God, confident that he would be met by the ap
proach of the Heavenly Father, In this spirit, ap
pealing to the Scriptures and to simplicity of faith
and practice, he was a reformer, an early one in that

60 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
long line that since has made the religious life of the
Anglo-Saxon race so noble and progressive.
Alfred's writings and translations were like his
personal life, radiant with the vivifying power of
truth. The nature of the books he translated into
the vernacular, so that his beloved people could have
the benefit of better information, was such that they
were eminently inclined to foster Christianity. He
translated the "Dialogue of Gregory," his "Pastoral
Book," the "Consolation of Philosophy" by Boethius,
the "General History and Philosophy" of Orosius and
Bede's "Ecclesiastical History," all books of religious
cast. In translating these he made free renderings,
greatly improving the originals, and the additions of
Alfred interjected here and there appeared like ap
ples of gold in silver setting. He caused schools to
be established, for on coming to the throne he found
gross ignorance everywhere, even among the clerics
supposed to be the conservators of learning. Like
Charlemagne, he set up a court school in which he
and his family were eager learners, and founded an
other school designed for the nobility of his realm.
He found the monasteries burned and in ruins by the
ravages of the Danes, some of which he rebuilt. He
erected two new ones, Atholney, in remembrance of
his hiding himself there in the Somerset morass, and
another at Shaftsbury, for women, over which he ap
pointed as abbess his daughter, Ethelgiva. England,
from the Danish ravages was in great danger of
again becoming pagan. Wessex alone led by Alfred,
was able to confront the remorseless Danes. When
they were beaten and the frith of Wedmore with

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 61
Guthrum was made, and that great leader accepted
Christianity with many of his nobles and soldiers,
promising to settle in East Anglia as peaceful tillers
of the soil, the plan formed by Alfred was a piece of
high Christian statesmanship.
A hundred years after Alfred another prose writer
came into prominence, a priest and abbot, Elfric.
His works are as a broad rift through the over
spreading clouds of mental darkness and decay, let
ting In a flood of sunlight upon the religious life of
his people of Wessex. His writings are what
would be expected of a churchman of that period,
works of a religious nature, homilies, saints' lives,
and theological disquisitions. Of praying he says,
"The sign of the cross is our blessing; and to
the cross we pray; yet not to the wood but to
the Almighty God that was hanged upon it."
Elfric's works were written to be given orally to the
people, to instruct them in righteousness and church
duties, and being thus designed, have, in the vernac
ular, a rhythmic structure.

CHAPTER VI
Out of the surroundings of nature and the re
stricted conditions of their previous life, the Anglo-
Saxons before their conversion must have had, both
on the continent and on the island, coarse manners
and habits repulsive to a higher grade of social life.
A decided improvement can be traced in the customs
of the people as this period progressed toward its close.
A kindly spirit instead of persecution for those
still pagan was practiced, later synodic action requir
ing carefulness of spirit toward those unconverted,
none being forced to accept the new faith. Not one
king emulated Charlemagne in his dealings with the
Old Saxons. The old drinking habits, a part of the
religious service like those of the Romans, could
not readily be hindered, though exhortation of monks,
laws of witans and councils and penitentials of arch
bishops were directed against such excesses. Dun
stan, as a regulation of drinking habits, ordered pegs
to be put into the sides of the drinking vessels, mark
ing how much each one might drink from the common
cup as his share. The Danes with still grosser habits
and with a despair brought by their devastations in
creased the dissoluteness.
Keeping slaves, whether captives of war or those
of their own people reduced by debt or crime, was
never deemed wrong till Christianity taught a better
spirit. At once the new teachers began to ameliorate
the condition of the thrall. Many of them as well as

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 63
of the free would accept the new cult, and by that ac
ceptance be entitled to a place in the great Christian
brotherhood. Many were manumitted. Cruelty to
slaves lingered some time, like other pagan practices,
it being said that the mistresses were especially severe
in punishing the female slaves. Clerical laws made it
impossible for a father to sell a child without the con
sent of the latter. By the laws of Ina, Christian men
were not to be sold into a foreign, heathen country,
and the good Bishop Wulfstan did his best to close
the port of Bristol against the slave trade to Ireland,
which had, respecting young women, some brutally
repulsive aspects.
The parish priests as distinct from the monks,
noble in the views obtained of them, seemed to have
had a beneficent influence upon the social life, since
living among the people, learning their needs and
thoughts, themselves married and cultivating the
glebe, were nearer the men and women of the town
ship and parish of the lord and his dependents than
celibate monks could possibly be. The people met on
more social occasions, the gathering for church serv
ices aiding, no doubt, in this valuable amenity.
Christian democracy had a growth but it was slow.
The well born were permitted to marry only the well
born, the uplift of the lower orders by no means being
rapid or universal.
One pursuing the course of English history cannot
but be pained as he approaches the Norman French
conquest to see the contrast in the life then found
compared with the rich promise of preceding genera
tions. Decay had struck all the life, national, men-

64 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
tal, moral. The acute mind of Bede saw the ap
proach of these national disasters, and in his patriot
ism did not hesitate to point them out. Among the
notes of warning he sent out was that false monas
teries had sprung up, protected by charters from
taxes, military service, and by other favors usual to
those houses, yet not possessing the real nature of
monasteries, being without monastic rules, and en
abling their inmates to live in easy, protected luxury.
He feared that such houses would leave the nation
without thegns and warriors possessing the means
and spirit to defend the country if attacked from the
outside. Many of these false monasteries were pre
sided over by nobles and ealdormen and by kings'
immediate servants, who, though posing as clerics,
had families of their own. Monasteries for women
were presided over by women that were not nuns.
Bede accused many houses, both for men and women,
as being marked by vanity, gluttony, and inconti
nence, a reproach to Christianity, existing from the
time of Aldfrid and Wilfred.
Boniface, even from his field of missionary work in
the forests of Germany, perceived the evils growing
up in English monasticism, and wrote biting letters
back to his native country, accusing the bishops of
drunkenness, the cloisters of luxury, the monks of
assuming fine adornments, leaving study, keeping bad
company, and falling into debauchery. The councils
of Cloveshoe sought to stem the flood and issued
strong words against these things, forbidding the
monks to bring into their monasteries for diversion
clowns, minstrels, poets, musicians, buffooneries. It

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 65
was said, too, that priests kept women unlawfully,
and putting one away would take another in her
place. The vast accumulation of wealth in many of the
monasteries must have been owing to the luxury and
laziness induced, the basis of much of the corruption
creeping into them. With the increase of wealth
came increase of covetousness, the Danes not being
the only spoilers of those institutions. Sometimes
the heirs of an abbot would put in a claim to the lands
administered by him, on condition of supporting the
monks of the institution. Kings and nobles who had
made gifts to religious houses would revoke the gifts.
Prelates would make over to their relatives some of
the lands committed to their control. It was not un
known that some of the bishops bought their offices,
the immense emoluments attached to the bishoprics
being a most alluring prize. But this decay of the
religious life was not peculiar to England, for in the
tenth century the popes and all were commingling in
the slough of vice and crime. One source of the evil
was the tendency to hold dioceses in plurality, one
bishop sometimes holding three or four sees and using
the vast income from them all. In 904 the pope put
England under an interdict because seven dioceses
were without bishops, and Pligmund consecrated
seven bishops in one day. Ealdred, archbishop of
York, before attaining that exalted seat held at the
same time the bishoprics of Worcester, Hereford and
Sherburne, yet was counted a good prelate. So
blended was the church with the state that the decay
of the one was the decay of the other. The strong

66 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
family of Alfred was touched with a decadence that
in memory of that noble king was most distressing.
Weak kings totter across the stage or are the victims
of court intrigue.
The Danish devastations in many respects dupli
cated the irruption of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes,
four centuries before. The evil they wrought could
not fail to hurry the decadence that .was setting in
from other sources. Like the Anglo-Saxons, on gain
ing control of portions of England and finally of all
the island, settling down they became Christianized.
Their hatred of Christianity lends color to the notion
that many of them were Old Saxons who fled their
own country when for their conversion Charlemagne
used the sword instead of the Bible. Wherever they
trod, churches, monasteries, and other Christian
foundations were blotted out, libraries shared the
same fate, priests and monks by the thousands fell
under their battle axes, and the nuns suffered a worse
fate still. It is said, however, that in some instances
they spared parish churches which were not in charge
of monks. Whole dioceses were denuded of priests
and bishops alike, a venerable archbishop of Canter
bury not being respected enough to save him from
torture and a most excruciating death. Edmund,
king of East Anglia, captured by them and required
to renounce his Christian faith, steadfastly refused.
He was tied to a tree and shot to death by their
arrows, being in the annals of the times counted a
martyr, the St. Sebastian of England.
It is not to be wondered that bishops, forsaking
crosier, snatched up the sword and led their own ten-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 67
ants and sometimes divisions of the royal army
against these scourges. A litany, "Deliver us, O
Lord, from the frenzy of the Northmen," was wrung
from the heart of the people. Great cities like Lon
don, York and Winchester were not spared from
plunder, fire and the sword. So great was the
slaughter that whole dynastic families were blotted
out ; two rival kings in York, uniting against the com
mon foe, were killed the same day. The destruction
by these Danes stood close beside that of Attila.
The country north and east was overrun, devasta
tions everywhere marking their steps, the west was
attacked from Ireland and only Wessex with its
mighty Alfred withstood the destruction. Gradually
the Danes accepted Christianity and when the great
representative of the Danes, the wise Canute, came
to the throne of all England, it was to rule, not as a
pagan, but as an enlightened Christian prince. Odo,
a Dane, had already been archbishop of York. Their
acceptance of the new faith had vastly to do in estab
lishing the right social relations with the Anglo-
Saxons, and in making the Dane into an Englishman.
When Athelstan was king, he aided Haco The Good
to the throne of Norway, and English missionaries,
protected by Haco, brought the gospel into that dis
tant kingdom.
But this painful decadence of church and national
life was not left to go on without efforts, by ecclesi
astics as well as kings, to stay it. Dunstan, a gen
eration away from Alfred, clasped hands with him
across that space in a reformed spirit. As the Danes
forsook the smoldering ruins of Glastonbury a few

68 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
monks and school boys returned to renew as best they
could the old associations, and among those school
boys was Dunstan, of a noble Wessex family. Later
the death of Odo placed Dunstan in the vacant
bishopric of Canterbury, by this office the primate be
coming the first counselor of the young king Edgar,
who was as much a churchman, or more, than the
primate, and the conduct of affairs in Wessex, where
both had most power, was ennobled by the devoutness
of both. The king is said to have founded no less
than forty-seven monasteries, deeming them the very
core of the Christian life, and besides these he caused
several of the old ones destroyed by the Danes to be
rebuilt. During his reign those foreign marauders
mostly ceased their incursions. England, like the
continent, was greatly stirred by the general impres
sion that time was to end with 1000 A. D., the efforts
at reform by Dunstan being greatly strengthened
by this thought.
It was at this epoch that the first of those great
revivals of monasticism occurring in the Middle Ages
came to England. It was brought forward by the
Cluniacs being introduced from Fleury, France. On
the continent as in England the monastic life had
sadly forsaken its first spirit and the reform of it
having begun at Cluny, it spread over all western
Europe, till two thousand congregations and monks
by the ten thousand accepted the reform. Under this
fresh impulse all the institutions were to be opened
always to the poor, the needy, and travelers, and
the old Benedictine rule of study was enforced.
These Cluniacs opposed the severity shown by the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 69
monks, or regulars, toward the secular clergy, those
conducting the parishes.
In time Cluny, the head of the movement, grew
rich, had renowned schools and widespread influence,
but itself grew corrupt and by that decadence called
for the Mendicant Friars. From England men were
sent to Fleury to study the new movement, and if
deemed best, were to bring back its rules, and possibly
also its spirit. Having been reported favorably, the
reform began taking root in England, King Edgar
and Dunstan being prominent in using its forces. Its
intellectual forces gave Elfric to England and the
Chronicles received new vigor and precision.
When in 1014 Canute, the great Danish leader,
came to the throne, that people had finally succeeded
in their object through generations of warfare,
this greatest representative of them, having like
King David executed the murderers of his royal op
ponent, displayed justice and great wisdom in his
ruling. To make his throne secure in the sentiments
of the English he married Emma, the mother of the
murdered Eadmund, rebuilt many of the monasteries
destroyed by the Danes and on every battlefield of the
conflict between the two peoples had a chapel built
that prayers might be continually offered for the
souls of the slain.
Canute went on a pilgrimage to Rome soon after
his accession, praying for himself and for his king
dom, conferring gifts upon religious houses there in
which he passed hours of devotion, and also obtained
many favors from the pope. One of these was no
longer to require going to Rome for the pallium of

70 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the archbishop, since corruption attended that cere
mony, and another that the Anglo-Saxon schools in
Rome should be freed from taxation. On his return
Canute sent a letter ahead of himself to his people
that breathes a most remarkable Christian spirit
from one so recently pagan, and so young, since he
was not much above thirty years of age. The
church of that period owed a vast obligation to the
vigorous, pious Dane.
During the whole Anglo-Saxon period the people
found it difficult wholly to escape from a superstitious
spirit, since so much of it held sway under the old
cult. Through it all can be seen in many ways that a
noble spirit was increasing, even laying kings, nobles,
and prelates under its gentle power. Thus Athel
stan, the grandson of Alfred, commanded that gov
ernors of towns belonging to the crown should main
tain a poor man in food and clothing, also free a slave
yearly. Buying or selling on Sunday was forbidden,
the day to begin at three o'clock Saturday, and
end at daylight on Monday morning. Bishops and
judges were to promote justice, regulate weights and
measures, protect the poor and the slaves. At a
convention under Edgar, 967, it was ordered that if a
person refused to pay tithes the bishop, or king's
officer, or sheriff, was to meet with the priest of the
parish and a division of the man's property was to be
made by force, the priest to have a tenth, the ninth
to be given to the recusant, the other eight parts to
be equally divided between the bishop and the king's
officer or the lord of the manor. The clergy were re
quired to be constant in their devotions, especially

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 71
that the people might be loyal and dutiful to their
governors and princes. Every priest was to learn
some industry, so as to guard against poverty. All
people were to teach the Christian faith to their chil
dren, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, else they were
not to come to the eucharist or be buried in conse
crated ground. Intemperance or riot at the dedica
tion of a church, or at any solemnity was to be pun
ished. Instead of hunting or hawking, the canons
and priests were to make books.

CHAPTER VII
The daily church service at the time of Odo and
Dunstan was something elaborate. Besides the reg
ular liturgy of Rome the Anglo-Saxon church
adopted for itself a breviary consisting of the Psalms
of David, the prophets and other sections of Scrip
ture, quotations from the Fathers, prayers, and the
story of the martyrs. Each day was divided into
seven hours, at which the clergy, since they were set
apart for that purpose, were summoned to the church
to sing and conduct the service in behalf of the great
body of Christians. The hours were four o'clock
and six, nine and twelve, then in the afternoon at
three, vespers, and nocturnes at seven in the evening.
In order that the people might know what they were
using, the priests were to teach them the Creed and
the Lord's Prayer. With the Scriptures were mixed
legends of Elijah, Adam and Eve, and other of his
chosen ones brought from Hades by Christ. The
resurrection was argued from the story of the Seven
Sleepers. The people were to observe the fasts,
saints' days, and to abstain from eating blood.
We are also let into a glimpse of the personal life
of an individual in reference to the church. A babe
was to be baptized within thirty days of its birth, re
generated they supposed by the water of baptism,
some one standing sponsor. As the child grew up it
was admitted to the eucharist, and if sinning penance
was imposed. These three great sacraments: bap-
72

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 73
tism, eucharist, and penance, were the means by which
the souls of men were purified from sin. While yet
young the person must receive the imposition of the
bishop's hands, by this obtaining the spirit of wisdom
and fortitude to withstand spiritual enemies. When
he married that event was to be made sacred by
priestly ceremonies; then as death approached, re
ceiving extreme unction and holy oil and the euchar
ist, he was assured that he could hopefully and peace
fully await the last hour. In time they came to
regard the eucharist as the highest service of their
religious life, as the highest to the glory of God.
They called it the celestial sacrifice, the sacred mys
teries, the renovation of the passion and death of
Christ. Of all the means to appease the wrath of
God, they thought this had the greatest efficacy.
Communion seasons were frequent in addition to the
great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun
tide. From the beginning of their conversion by Augus
tine through the whole Anglo-Saxon period the
people went to confession, submitting to any penance
laid upon them. At the time of confession the con
fessor was to make careful inquiry into the circum
stances of the misbehavior. The penitent in making
confession was to repeat the Creed, evince contrition
and humiliation, be explicit in telling his faults, his
feelings respecting covetousness, envy, distraction,
lying, vanity, spite, profaneness, keeping unlawful se
crets, whether he had been the tempter and taught the
methods of vice to others. To the confessor and to
God the penitent made his confession, praying to

74 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Christ for pardon and begging the priest to bear wit
ness at the Judgment of his sincerity. Then on Ash
Wednesday the penitent was to repair to the cathe
dral, when the bishop would name the penance, if it
had not already been laid upon him. If the crime
was heinous, the culprit was debarred entrance to the
church, if he was submissive and well behaved he could
appear on a Monday or Thursday publicly before the
bishop and be absolved by him.
But in process of time so many exceptions to the
literal fulfillment of penance were allowed that It must
have ceased to reach the original object. The con
ditions began to be modified, possibly because the peo
ple, more enlightened by Scripture and general ad~
vance of knowledge, were restless under them and so
the clergy yielded to compromise. Thus, those re
stricted to bread and water were allowed to have some
green herbs with them. Commutation In distinct
form was finally allowed one. If near death's door,
or if he found his constitution too weak for such
austerities he might, instead, give a certain sum to
the poor or redeem captives or say over the Pater
Noster or Miserere. "He might," says Turner, "re
pair churches, make folk ways, with bridges over
deep waters and over miry places ; and let him help
poor men's children and step-children and widows.
He may free his own slaves, and redeem the liberty of
those of other masters." A penny a day was some
times required of those able to pay, and of the poor
fifty Paternosters and of the educated fifty psalms.
Another form of escape was the permission given to a
great man to get others to fast with him, their days

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 75
counting as his but in no case could his fast be less
than three days and on the fourth day he must wash
the feet of the poor. Another way was to secure
some monks or a hermit to assume the required fast
ing and prayers, to be well paid for his penitential
assistance. The famous Council of Cloveshoe ar
dently attacked the system of commutation and it is
claimed with questioning that it did not persist after
the time of Eadgar and Dunstan.
One of the customs brought to England by the mis
sionaries and one which exerted a wide infiuence was
that of praying for the dead. It was supposed that
those not hopelessly wicked whose souls needed more
purifying and refining action could be helped after
death toward eternal bliss by the prayers of friends
in this world. Hence a custom prevalent and intense
was fostered through all the centuries of that period.
One constant duty of the monks was to pray for the
repose of the soul of the one founding their monas
tery, or for that of some kind patron giving further
endowment, or still for such as were paid for doing
this act. The fear of purgatory became a very real
one to those whose ancestors firmly believed most viv
idly in Valhalla; to be helped out of the purifying
fires of such a purgation was worthy of great gifts
of land or of money. Guilds were formed with many
objects but In them all was the one important regula
tion that they should pray for the soul of the dead
member, or pay monks for such intercession.
When one was deathly sick the priest summoned
was bound to go and, attended by his Inferior clergy,
exhort the dying man first to pay his debts and in-

76 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
demnify any he had injured. Extreme unction fol
lowed, with the sign of the cross laid upon different
parts of the body, and the use of consecrated oil, ac
companied with appropriate prayers. Then the sick
one received the eucharist, when the priest and others
gave the kiss of peace and left him assured of a suc
cessful journey to heaven. The custom of burying
the bodies of prominent saints and renowned church
men in religious houses first occurred with the body
of Theodore. Cuthbert expressed a wish that his
body might be buried within the walls of the diocesan
cathedral ; hence arose the custom of burying the
prelates in such sacred places.
Like prayers for the dead, prayers to the saints
was an imported custom, yet while much practiced did
not supersede direct and devout prayers to God. To
the saints they ascribed power over nature, disease,
and human life. At the first they had to Import
saints and relics but in time so many Anglo-Saxons
attained sainthood that churches were dedicated to
them, the epithet, "Island of Saints" being applied to
England. The clergy having its system of culture were re
quired to meet the bishop twice a year in synod,
where they were allowed the privilege of debate. Be
sides these diocesan synods, national councils were
called, sometimes by the pope or the archbishop, or
one might be ordered by a preceding council. The
objects of such national gatherings were to watch
over the purity of the faith, the enforcement of dis
cipline, to show bishops and priests their respective
duties, reform abuses, and regulate public worship.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 77
It is certain that they had a quiet but deep trending
toward national unity, for clerics from all of the
kingdoms whose influence was potent from the land
ing of Augustine and his party were represented in
them. A period In church influence for national
unity was reached when Eadred, selected by the first
Witenagemot in which English nobles and bishops,
British under kings and Danish jarls sat and voted
together, was crowned In 946, the mutual act of the
two primates of Canterbury and York.
Allied to these active forces for peace and safety
was the peculiar movement called "The Truce of
God." Starting in southern France In the tenth cen
tury as a religious excitement, it became prominent
in England before the middle of the eleventh century.
By its provisions no one was to attack or molest an
other from Thursday evening to Monday morning of
each week. These days were set aside because
Thursday was specially sacred as the day of Christ's
ascension, Friday the day of his Passion, Saturday
as the day he rested In the grave, Sunday as the day
of his resurrection. In its later stages the Truce
covered important fasts, feasts and holy occasions,
these, with three days every week, making a large
share of the year when no sword could be unsheathed
or battle ax unslung. Staying the red hand of war
and of private vengeance so much gave the people a
respite from danger, time for angry passion to cool
and opportunity for threatened ones to seek security.
In England this movement found expression in the
laws of Edward by which from Advent to Octaves of
Epiphany all lawsuits and prosecutions were to

78 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
cease. The same cessation was required from Septu-
agesima to Octaves of Whitsuntide, all three days in
Ember week, on all Sundays from three o'clock Sat
urday afternoon over Sunday to dawn of Monday
upon vigils of the Virgin, St. Michael's Day and that
of John the Baptist, all Apostles' and other saints'
days of which notice was given by the priest on Sun
day. The same freedom from arrest or disturbance
was enacted for the anniversary of the church be
longing to any parish, or holy day of any saint par
ticularly related to that parish. Under the same
favor was a person on a pilgrimage, to or from a
church to say his prayers, to a synod, or to the con
secration of a church or to a consistory or going to
a bishop to be released from excommunication. One
fleeing to a churchyard or to a priest's house could
be troubled only by a bishop or a priest, the power
of sanctuary being extended thus from the altar to
the church land. So carefully was the hand of the
church made to cover the unprotected as a shield.
It is a most interesting phase of this study to
note the change being made from the rough, brutal,
bloodthirsty nature shown at the flrst by the follow
ers of Hengist and Horsa to the milder, gentler
spirit being manifested by those who had accepted
Christianity. When the ecclesiastical questions over
the different times of holding Easter were settled be
tween the Celtic and Roman sections of the church,
a gradual elimination of rancor took place between
the two races and by the end of the Anglo-Saxon
period had entirely disappeared, a union in religious
matters being complete by the time of the Conquest.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 79
In the later wars with the Welsh, remnants of the
native British driven to the west of the island, the
Anglo-Saxons no longer waged wars of extermination
like those of the pagan period. If the Anglo-Saxon
supremacy was acknowledged and heeded then peace
was allowed. Saxon and Welsh alike being Chris
tians, that bond became stronger than race hatred.
Sentences for violated law were made more humane,
holy days forced periods of peace, strife was being
appeased. By the laws of Ethelred fraudulent deeds
were to be cast out of the country, also injustice,
hateful illegalities, false weights and measures, lying
witnesses and shameful fightings. He also put un
der condemnation horrid perjuries, diabolical deeds
in "morth" works and in homicide, as well as drunk
enness, gluttony and sacrilege. He also declared
that as all had one Father, God, and one mother, the
church, all were brothers. When such men as the
stern Anglo-Saxons and cruel Danes could consent to
these milder ways, enact and observe such laws and
dooms it can be seen that a marked mitigation of
fierceness was going on. Those grim warriors whose
joy had been the drunken feast and the deadly hand
play of the sword, often entered voluntarily upon a
life of abstention and study, of prayer and vigil.
The changes among the common people though un
recorded were unquestionably going on. Brutal
sports and amusements of cruelty, unnatural crimes
and shocking barbarities, were growing less and less.
The spirit of Christ was shown to be better than that
of Woden, their old war god. The Jews under Ed
ward the Confessor were taken into the protection of

80 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the crown, and when it is remembered how this de
spised race had been harried, robbed, and driven
from one country and another, such kindly protec
tion gleams as a shaft of light in the darkness of their
misfortunes. The papacy in most of the Anglo-Saxon period
had but light direction of affairs upon the Island.
The popes usually let England alone. Still they
wisely directed initial steps for evangelizing parts
of the land. The papacy claimed the right to direct
affairs on occasion, as was shown in the selection and
appointment of Theodore as archbishop of Canter
bury. The unhappy disputes taking place between
Wilfred and those about him, leading to the appeal
to the pope, opened the way for papal interference
that was illy brooked by the Anglo-Saxon authorities,
civil or ecclesiastical. They sometimes flatly re
fused to abide the decisions of the pope, suggesting
that they could attend to their own matters.
Through a curious money transaction, that of
Peter's Pence, the papal grip upon England was
greatly aided. This money at first seems to have
been a grant from England of means to sustain the
Saxon school founded at Rome by Ina, King of Wes
sex. Offa of Mercia, in gratitude for aid deemed to
have been given him by St. Peter in a war, confirmed
the grant, extending the territory of its collection,
and Ethelwulf as overlord of all England still
further extended the country laid under obligation.
In time the confirmation of the grants by the kings
brought it to the definite sum of a silver penny from
each family or hearth of the kingdom, being usually

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 81
collected by the bishop of the diocese and sent to
Rome. Being due every year on the date of Peter's
mass It was called Peter's Pence. The popes needed
the money and it also expressed a certain obligation
of the land and Its people, royal, cleric and laity, to
the papal see. Protestors there were all along, as
evidenced by the dooms upon recusants, but on the
other hand most of the Christians would be glad to
pay that small sum each year to aid the great central
figure of their faith.

CHAPTER VIII
By the beginning of the eleventh century matters
leading to the Norman Conquest began to take def
inite form. Little thought was there of the momen
tous results that through the centuries would follow
when in 1002 Ethelred took In marriage Emma, the
daughter of Richard the Good, Duke of Normandy.
Those Northmen, settling in France, had become
thoroughly Christianized. By a race of great rulers
peace and prosperity had been secured and their in
fluence upon England was to be increasingly impor
tant to the Conquest sixty years forward. By his
marriage with the Norman princess, Ethelred kept
the Danes from finding refuge in the harbors of Nor
mandy or aid from Its men at arms. But it did not
save the king from defeat by the Danes under the
able leadership of Swein, after which the whole royal
family fled oversea to the court of Richard. Still
Ethelred and his brave son, Edmund Ironside, made
attempts on the soil of England to retrieve these re
verses, and Eadmund, after the death of Ethelred,
so far succeeded that the country was divided as in
the day of the great Alfred between English king and
Danish king along the Thames and Watling Street
when death came to Eadmund and the Danish king
Canute was acknowledged sole ruler of the realm.
After his marriage with Emma, Ethelred's widow,
Canute called together the Witenagemot and ob
tained their election of him to the throne. He

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 83
trusted the English to such an extent that he sent his
own troops back to Norway save a compact body of
them, the Nuscarls, which served as a body-guard
and declared the laws of Edgar those of the land.
Canute's relations to Christianity became those of
deference, thoughtfulness and devotion. Out of the
anarchy following Canute's death and that of his un
worthy sons came a cry from the people and a quick
vote of the Witenagemot for a ruler of their own
blood, Edward, the son of Ethelred and Emma. The
thirty years of his life had been spent in Normandy,
where he had fully learned the ways and speech of
the land, and had so inclined him to piety and the
monastic life that he was afterward known as Ed
ward the Confessor. Soon after his accession he
married Eadgyth, the daughter of the great earl of
Wessex, Godwine, who by his marriage and by plac
ing large sections of England in the hands of his
sons and other relatives was aiming to win the throne
on Edward's death for his own family.
Norman favorites In the train of Edward began
to find lucrative places, one, Robert of Jumieges, be
ing made bishop of London, and Ulf, another of Ed
ward's religious followers, being given the great see
of Dorchester. The see of Canterbury becoming
vacant the Norman party and the English wanted to
fill it, but Edward raised Robert of London to it and
civil war became imminent. Robert was the creature
of Edward, as Aelfric, the candidate of the native
party, would have been the creature of Godwine had
it been given to him. An army summoned by God
wine stood on one side of the Thames and that of

84 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Edward on the other but the national spirit was so
developed through the church and other means that
the leaders of the Witan deemed It unwise to fight.
Godwine and his family being outlawed, fled, part to
Flanders, part to Ireland. The Bishop of London,
Spearhafoc, partisan of Godwine, was superseded by
the chaplain of Edward, a Norman, and the wife of
Edward was dismissed to a nunnery. No harsher
measures than these against the great earl comported
with the growing Christian consciousness of the realm
guided by the devout king.
On the whole the influence of Godwine and his
house upon the religious life was rather negative than
positive. He pursued methods to secure the throne
for his family that illy accorded with even the low
Christian sentiment of his time. He founded no re
ligious houses, and as matters went In that age such
a failure might be regarded as a neglect If not a dis
like of religion with one so rich and powerful.
Edward the Confessor under a vow had purposed
a pious pilgrimage to Rome, but yielded to the out
cry of his nobility and people against the plan for
fear of Danish invasion, the pope granting him abso
lution from It. Instead he freed the people from the
burdensome ship tax to pay hired sailors for the pro
tected fleet, and furthered the project of building
Westminster. This great foundation was the su
premest purpose of the pious Confessor. From the
pope he obtained the right to make it the place to
crown the English sovereigns, a residence for Bene
dictine monks, and to be subject to the jurisdiction
of the king only, not even the bishop of the diocese

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 85
to have any authority over it. Then an elaborate
dedication of it took place, and five days after it the
pious king died. His reign had been so mild, and so
much directed by the spirit of Christianity that his
sainthood was firmly established in the thought of
the masses, for they deemed he had the power of
prophecy and of working miracles.
But in spite of this reputation of the king a condi
tion had obtained in the whole realm by which church
men, like bishops and abbots, were appointed, not
upon merit nor upon the suffrages of their chapters,
but as a result of court intrigue and corruption.
The king's authority was needed to give validity to
such appointments, hence his own creatures mostly
held the important posts. Nor was simony unknown.
Indeed, it had made blots upon the nation's fame in
most of this period. As early as 666 the see of Lon
don was bought by Bishop WIni. Indications of this
evil are not lacking In all the history of the Anglo-
Saxons, becoming a crying evil in the reign of
Canute's sons, the high places going to him who
could offer the most money for them. The Bernlcian
bishopric was sold by Hathacanute to Eadred, a
secular priest. Even in the reign of Edward, when
so much sanctity was claimed In the conduct of
ecclesiastical matters, the court. If not the king and
Godwine, was tainted with the selling and buying of
church positions. Much of this corruption could be
charged up to the Norman favorites thronging the
kingdom, their course in this being fully in accord
with the spirit rife on the continent where the clergy
from the lowest upward through all the hierarchy

86 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
including the popes, made the religious life putrid
with this blasting crime.
During this period a new office, that of canons,
was introduced into some of the cathedrals of Eng
land. The duties of the canons were partly those
of the regular clergy, being attached to a cathedral,
devoted to a common life, instructing the young.
They also celebrated the divine offices, and per
formed some of the higher acts of charity. Each
canon had his own separate estate, hence arose
prebendary allotments to particular individuals.
Out of this office grew the cathedral chapters. One
earl, at least, in that age saw the worth of religious
houses, Leofric of Mercia, who, with his wife, the
devoted Godlva, founded a monastery at Coventry,
conferred much gold and silver upon the abbey
church, and founded also the monasteries of Leone
and Wenlock, besides repairing and endowing others.
In connection with the monastery town of Coventry
arose the legend of Godiva's unhabllitated ride
through the streets to free the people from a servile
tenure. The clouds portending the Norman Conquest were
thickening over England. Duke William of Nor
mandy claimed that Edward promised the succession
to him in case he lacked descendants and the wily
duke when holding Harold in his power also ex
tracted a promise of the crown from him. For on
the death of Godwine the great earldom of Wessex
with other sources of power fell to Harold, and the
schemes of Godwine to have his family occupy the
throne appeared more and more sure of fulfillment.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 87
Harold favored the secular clergy, deeming them on
their parishes and married able to do better service
to their country and In their age than celibate
monks. When he founded his great secular college
of Waltham he put these men and not monks in
charge of it.
Edward died childless. At once the Witan elected
Harold king. It was William's opportunity. To
give his invasion the cast of sanctity he declared it
his purpose to drive out the oathbreaker Harold,
whose crime and sin must be very great, since the
oath was extorted from Harold when he was help
less In the hands of his rival. Further, the pope's
sanction being obtained and the royal banner being
blessed by that royal successor of St. Peter, the move
ment assumed somewhat the form of a crusade.
Harold, beset by other enemies, his own brother
Tostig and a host of Norwegians at the north,
bloodily defeated them in a terrific battle at Stam
ford Bridge, and at the same time a favorable wind
wafted the fleet of William to the southern shores of
England. Harold, though so illy prepared after
the other struggle to meet the splendidly equipped
army of the northern duke, did not fail to accept
the menace and on the fateful field of Senlac lost
kingdom and life the same day. William, like
Canute, became an English king. He was duly
elected by a Witenagemot called for that object,
was crowned by Aeldred, archbishop of York, and
announced that the laws of the land should remain
unchanged.

CHAPTER IX
The Norman Conquest had a profound influence
on the religious life of England. It placed the peo
ple In more intimate relations with the continent,
enlarging the vision by leading from the insular nar
rowness already manifesting itself. Progress in
many ways was better on the continent than on the
island. For several generations the decay of Eng
lish life had been apparent even to many of the
English themselves, showing itself in the backward
condition of knowledge and thought, in the weak
government, and most sadly in the corruptions of
church and society. England was not as rapidly
becoming a political power as France and other
continental nations. The Norman occupancy by its
very roughness and the shock it gave to the national
spirit, by its strong sovereigns and educated prelates
was to infuse new energy and to give the attrition
needed for better national growth and purer reli
gious development.
William on his coronation day swore to govern
his new subjects with clemency and justice but ere
long discovered grounds to depart widely from those
pacific promises. A part of what he deemed rights
of conquest and means of retaining it was to change
the prelates. He soon began systematic displacing
of native prelates and substituting Norman church
men on whom he could rely for sustaining his claim
to sovereignty. From the start the English were
88

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 89
turbulent though the king sought to reconcile them
to his sway by allowing them to retain their laws
and customs as far as they could do so with safety.
Many of William's followers promised rich booty in
land, offices and honors, contemptuously despised
the rough Islanders, sneered at their appearance,
their language and their church practices. Eng
lish nobles like the prelates were set aside, their wide
manors and domains distributed among the rapa
cious followers of William. Scores of churchmen
brought from the continent were put in the dioceses
and abbeys as soon as the king could find any decent
excuse to remove the incumbents. Egelsin, abbot
of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, tried to placate the
king and retain his place by conveying some rich
manors Into the possession of William's favorites,
but seeing this was not enough to secure himself, he
gathered the money and jewels of the monasteries
and fleeing to Denmark never returned. Wulstan,
Bishop of Worcester, stoutly pleaded for justice in
his case and finally held his see, but this clemency
was a lone exception. Schools were soon founded
to teach the French language, as the conquerors
despised what seemed to them the barbarous speech
of the English. Before the Conquest bishoprics
and abbeys were exempted from dues to the crown,
but now their Incumbents were compelled like the
barons to furnish soldiers and bear other national
burdens. Some of the Norman prelates were displeased
with the monks, claiming that the seculars were bet
ter adapted to the duties required than the others.

90 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
But Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his
high position protected the monks. A synod, 1076,
in London, decreed that no cleric was to act as
judge where loss of limb or life was involved. An
other synod a year later, decreed that no cleric
should be married but if a priest having charge at
a castle or village already had a wife he was not to
put her away, and after that no bishop was to
ordain one unless pledged not to marry. This hluv
dered young men from taking orders. These rules
of cleric marriage were not fully observed, the Eng
lish church in this respect holding itself partly free.
No layman was to marry without the priest's bless
ing, else it was sin.
William ordered the laws of the Confessor to be
hunted up and codified for use, appointing twelve
men under the bishop of London and the archbishop
of York to find them and write them out. While
deferring much to papal wishes, since his attack
upon England had the blessing of that power, he
was not as subservient as Rome desired. He con
firmed the laws of tithe, promised the payment of
Peter Pence, but utterly refused homage to the
pope and would not admit official letters from his
holiness to enter England until it was found that
they suited his wishes.
In the Domesday Book, ordered in 1085, only
about seventeen hundred churches are enumerated,
though as many as forty-five thousand had been
claimed for the country. The number given In the
Domesday Book is for a part of the country only,
the other number is plainly too large, so that

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 91
neither is reliable. Most of these churches had en
dowment in lands from a few acres to a hundred.
William inaugurated a series of dual courts, church
and civil, since before that time matters of both
had been united in the same courts. This division,
possibly of use then, was later to hatch a nest of
active troubles. He had laws enacted for govern
ing cases in each of these courts, and property that
had been filched from the bishoprics and abbeys he
had restored. Insistent as he was that only pious
and educated men should be given clerical prefer
ment, places of small account as well as great ones
were gradually filled under his direction. The Bat
tle Abbey built on the fateful field of Senlac was ex
empted from episcopal visitation. At this time
Patrick, the bishop of Dublin, came to Lanfranc for
confirmation, as did his immediate successor,
Donogh, and others followed, some of these men
working diligently for the reformation and prog
ress of the religious life in Ireland. The bishop of
the Orcades also sought confirmation of the arch
bishop of York.
Lanfranc, with all his modesty, was a tireless
worker for religion, rebuilding dilapidated cathe
drals and monasteries, was learned, the author of
several works of church service as well as a suc
cessful antagonist of Berangcr who wrote against
the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread
of the sacrament. The real presence had become a
general tenet in the western church and Beranger
for combating it was cited as a heretic before
councils, popes and cardinals, there to recant, only

92 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
to deny his recantation when out of danger. After
the riot of Glastonbury, the bishop of Salisbury de
vised a plan of church service used over all Eng
land and known as the "Use of Sarum."
William Rufus on his accession found immense
treasure in the king's hoard, of which according to
his father's will, for the benefit of his soul, Rufus
gave to each of the greater churches ten marks, to
the smaller ones five shillings, and to each county
a hundred pounds for distribution among the poor.
The pleasing promises of the new king were soon
ignored, the see of Canterbury after Lanfranc's
death, was left vacant three years, the income go
ing into the king's hands. In like manner clutch
ing the income of other prelates' places as they
became vacant, and those of abbots as well, the king
used the means for his own selfish purposes Instead
of devoting them piously to charitable or public
ends. In vivid contrast to the distress and lax dis
cipline prevailing through the course of the Eng
lish king, Scotland, under the benign influence of
Queen Margaret over the rugged Malcolm enjoyed
a most pleasant religious life, churches being built
with other proofs of progress.
The Crusades broke out during these times and
Robert, the brother of William Rufus mortgaged
the duchy of Normandy to the English king for
money with which to go on a crusade. To raise
the money the king laid exorbitant taxes upon his
people, sold church ornaments, plundered altars of
their rich offerings, even tearing the gold and sil
ver ornaments from the Bibles in the cathedrals.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 93
As it was a holy cause the primate aided the king
in raising this money.
In 1091, the great abbey of Croyland was burned,
the fire consuming about seven hundred precious
manuscript books, large and small, with other choice
treasures. The ways entered upon to rebuild It
give us rare glimpses of the inner life. Special in
dulgences were granted by adjacent bishops to
those aiding the work, nobles and the lower people
contributing money, food, live stock and many other
means, one poor old woman, Juliana of Weston, as
the widow's mite, giving thread spun by her own
hand to sew the garments of the monks. A new ab
bot, Jaffrid, from Normandy, coming a few years
later was not satisfied with the poor buildings and
sought means to build again. He did this by sell
ing remittances of penances and fasts In various
dioceses, sending out monks to find this money in
a manner similar to Tetzel's sales that so aroused
Luther four centuries later. When the foundations
of the great monastery were laid, a noble would put
in one stone and then lay on it a sum of money,
twenty pounds, another ten marks, or a journey
man's labor for a year, patronage of a church, tithes
of all his sheep and the like. This Jaffrid Insti
tuted flagellations upon himself on Good Friday in
which distressing course he was followed by his
monks. On the accession of Henry First, a younger
brother of William Rufus, he took steps at once to
clear his court of the vileness blackening It under
his brother's course. In his coronation oath he

94 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
promised to restore the laws of Edward and William
First. He filled the sees of Canterbury, Winchester
and Salisbury, kept vacant by his brother who used
their income for his own purposes, and promised,
though he did not keep the pledge, not to sell
benefices or use their income. The noble work a
prelate could do If so disposed was shown in Thomas,
archbishop of York, who died the same year. He
was a man of great learning and diligent in his la
bors. His province he found most demoralized but
in many ways he restored it. He filled the vacant
canonships, built the cathedral, placing in it an ex
tensive library, wrote books, composed hymns, in
troduced choirs and divided the diocese into arch
deaconries. On Robert's return from the Crusade, finding
Henry on the throne instead of William Rufus, he
deemed it usurpation. Appealing to arms he
landed an army on English soil, but the men of Eng
land, barons and prelates, Anselm among them, suc
ceeding in effecting a settlement without war. The
agreement was that Henry should pay four thou
sand marks a year, the crown to descend to Robert's
issue If none was left by Henry. This danger past
the quarrel over investiture began anew, both Henry
and Anselm appealing to the pope. The pope in
sisted that the investitures by the king were void,
but there being great influence in the party of the
king, the archbishop consented for the time to com
municate with those given investiture by Henry but
not to consecrate them. Among other things Henry
agreed to restore to Canterbury and Anselm the ben-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 9S
efits of that province. In spite of synod and prel
ates marriage of the priests went on, many of them
seeming to think that nature's laws and God's word
in favor of it were above the action of canon law,
councils and synods against it. In various ways
besides in the matter of investiture the pope was
laying claim to supremacy in England. When the
pope tried to impose a legate upon England the
king refused to accept him. One going to Rome
with an appeal, or on church business, had, in order
to gain his purpose, to give large bribes which were
more potent than justice or righteousness.
The building of great religious houses went on
during the Norman period. Carlisle devastated
near the end of the tenth century by the Danes had
lain in ruins till William Rufus rebuilt it, and in
Henry First's time the locality was made a bishop
ric. A college was also erected, the diocese includ
ing the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland.
At Chichester a magnificent monastery was built for
the canons who were now without benefices, all prop
erty being renounced and vows taken of constancy,
obedience and poverty. Another monastery was
built at Dunstable, and one for the Cluniacs at
Reading, all of these foundations being richly en
dowed, the inmates freely distributing alms to the
passers-by. Stephen, on being elected king, gave a renewed
charter favorable to the church only to neglect it
when he was fully in the saddle. Theobald became
archbishop of Canterbury and was another of those
great prelates who did noble service if church pre-

96 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
sumptions against the assumptions of Norman sov
ereigns was of worth to the realm. At a synod in
Westminster in 1138, it was ordered that clerics
who went hunting or entered secular affairs for en
riching themselves should be suspended, and similar
prohibition was declared against their taking arms,
though a bishop at the north had just led a force
against the Scot invaders. The same synod de
clared that any cleric who was married was doomed
to hell.
Between Henry Second and his primates arose
one of those great contests between the secular na
tional life and the claim of clerical supremacy.
Thomas Becket had been a-n intimate companion of
Henry for some years, was educated, courtly, able,
and had finally been elevated to the chancellorship.
Finding that rich manors belonging to Canterbury
had been bestowed upon court favorites, Becket
claimed their return and being refused so stood upon
his rights that he excommunicated the claimants,
which exasperated the court and turned even the
king away from his archbishop. The archbishop
claimed the control of church courts in all cases
even when clerics were guilty of murder, robbery
and other high crimes. The contest drew the eyes
of the continental powers since it was with them as
with Henry. Appealing to the customs and laws
of the past in the realm, Henry collected what was
known as the Constitutions of Clarendon. These
really made a strong position for Henry's conten
tions. By these laws the king's consent was needed
for the election of bishop or abbot, these men hold-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 97
ing their land as a barony from the king, subject
to the usual taxation and appearance in court.
Becket, awhile after signing the Constitutions,
repudiated them but for a moment seemed reconciled
to Henry. After one of the unsatisfactory settle
ments Becket returned to Canterbury and Henry
was in Normandy. At a passing cause of exaspera
tion the king let fall some reproach that of the many
he kept about him none freed him from that inso
lent priest. This was taken by some of them as a
bid for the primate's life, and four knights, making
their way to Canterbury sustained by a rabble and
even by some clerics, assassinated Becket in his
church. No one was more horrified than the king
who did not intend to have such an extremity
reached. To the pope he disclaimed the purpose to
have Becket killed, the four assassins found no favor
with him but as frightened fugitives were put under
heavy penances, one punishment being to make a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem where at least three of
them died. For his part Henry modified the Con
stitutions of Clarendon, promised to undertake a
crusade of three years, to have the Templars keep
two hundred soldiers a year at his expense, to bring
back the banished clergy and restore their estates,
and other pledges were made by him and by the
heir apparent. At the tomb of Becket it was said
that miracles began to take place. Pilgrimages
were made to it, the pope canonized him, and in
succeeding years, his shrine having become one of
the most noted in Christendom vast sums of money
as offerings of the pious were laid upon it.

CHAPTER X
In 1173 Henry personally conducted a campaign
in Ireland, some of his troops having invaded it be
fore, as the pope had given permission to be done.
On their subjection the Irish clergy agreed that it
was a just judgment of Heaven for their trade in
English slaves and they promised to set them free.
Four archbishops had been set up in Ireland,
Armagh, Cashel, Dublin, and Tuam, with twenty-
nine suffragan bishops all dependent upon the Eng
lish hierarchy. The ritual used was similar to that
of England. In Scotland much the same depend
ence upon England existed, though certain restless
ness and a wish to be independent of the southern
neighbor marked the Scots as well as the Irish.
By action of the synods we can get insight into
the religious Hfe not otherwise obtained. Thus one
held In Normandy when Henry abjured a part of
the Constitutions of Clarendon under remorse at
Becket's death, decreed that children or minors were
not to be admitted to benefices. The sons of priests
for the taint upon their legitimacy and to prevent
clerics from becoming a hereditary class, were not
to succeed their fathers in church living. If a hus
band or wife In years desired to join a religious
house permission was not given if the other pre
ferred to remain secular. None could be permitted
to escape fasting upon Lent unless ill, and clerks
must shun secular jurisdiction. Another synod de-
98

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 99
creed that a priest drinking at a public house should
be degraded, and if they let their hair grow long it
should be cropped by the archdeacon. They must
not obtain orders out of their own diocese nor
should vicars encroach upon the rights of rectors,
clandestine marriage was forbidden since all must
be married in a church, infant marriage being null
unless when they were grown up they consented to
it, a church must not be given as a dower, monks
must not turn farmer or soldier or merchant. The
bread of the eucharist must not be dipped into the
wine and the wine must be consecrated only in a
gold or silver vessel.
To help the administration of justice Henry di
vided the kingdom into six sections with two justices
in each, and the Constitutions of Clarendon were
mostly followed. The Council of Rome, 1179, that
excommunicated the Albigenses and Waldenses, had
delegates from all parts of Britain, some of the
English clergy being among those sent to bring
these heretics to orthodoxy.
Richard First, the Lion Hearted, came to the
throne in 1139, his first great purpose being to go
on a crusade to the Holy Land. To raise money to
go Richard sold manors and earldoms, the bishop
of Durham buying the earldom of Northumbria to
gether with the manor of Sudbury and the knights
belonging to it. Richard unfortunately left rule in
England in the hands of two justiciars who fell into
a quarrel in which the clergy and even the pope
took a part, one of the justiciars having to flee the
kingdom. In conduct most heartless the nobles and

100 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
royal family indulged in the disorders. The savage
spirit of that age seemed to have been let loose with
scarcely any check. When Richard, fearing usur
pation by John, made a truce with the Saracens and
was hastening to England, and was captured and
held by the German emperor for a great ransom,
the churches at home raised the first payment by
selling their rich plate and ornaments and by tax
ing the clergy, for the king had been engaged in
holy war. Then because the emperor would not re
turn the money given for ransoming a crusader, the
pope excommunicated him.
John, coming to the throne in 1199, soon showed
the inability that later was to alienate the papacy
at one time and the nation at another. Two men by
opposing parties had been elected to the archbishop
ric of Canterbury, but both were set aside by the
pope, who had the English monks in Rome elect
Stephen Langton. John objected to receiving
Langton, and the pope, taking strenuous steps to
have his way, sent three bishops, of London, Worces
ter and Ely, to beg and threaten. The embassy of
the three bishops did not move John from his objec
tions to Langton. His incorrigibility led the pope
to put the kingdom under Interdict.
When the country had suffered some time under
the interdict John consented to receive Langton but
with such saving clauses in the letter patent that the
bishops knew the pope would not accept it. Most
of the bishops, afraid of the king, fled oversea, John
ordering all who abetted them also to leave the is
land. Of those clergy remaining the king ordered

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 101
his sheriffs to seize their revenues and to leave only
a bare pittance for the incumbent. The priests
were mercilessly robbed, their wives mulcted, the
king seeming mad against the church. In 1209 the
pope excommunicated the recusant king, the fugitive
bishops being ordered by the pope to send the news
of it into England which they secretly did. Bitter
was the contest.
To complete the drama the pope deposed John.
Philip Augustus of France, moved no doubt by cer
tain mercenary motives, gathered a great arma
ment to invade England, the pope granting plenary
indulgence to all who would enter upon the crusade
and offering the kingdom to Philip In fee simple.
Finally John, fearing that his nobility and people
whom he had so wronged would not sustain him, and
fearing also that the excommunication would cost
him his eternal welfare, yielded abjectly, taking oath
that he submitted to the demands of the church.
Thus beaten, humiliated, the king resigned the king
doms of England and Ireland Into the hands of the
papacy, thence to receive them again as fiefs of that
power. When the banished prelates returned, the
king cast himself in tears at their feet, whence rais
ing him they conducted him to the cathedral and
absolved him, while he pledged himself to revive the
laws of Edward and to do all In his power for the
church and clergy. Still the interdict was not
raised, remaining in practical force for six
years. Early in 1215 the barons made insistent pleas for
him to redeem his pledges, the king answering that

102 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
by Easter he would fulfill his pledges, promising also
to meet his promise to go on a crusade. At that
date the barons threatened force, the king in hot
blood rejected their demands, the prelates joined the
movement for better government and on the grassy
field of Runnymede the baffled king, after confer
ence with these representatives of the nation,
granted the Magna Carta. It confirmed previous
charters based upon that of Henry First, with many
new provisions offering to England an advanced
guarantee of rights such as a Christian people had
learned to expect. The church was granted the
privilege to elect its bishops and abbots. John at
once sent a remonstrance to the pope, saying that
the charter was drawn from him by force. That
prelate at once declared the charter void. He
wrote to the barons protesting first, and then ex
communicating them, to which they paid no heed.
The king with hired mercenaries unavailingly
fought the barons. Papal control of England was
giving way. Religious Independence from that
time was more than before a factor In England.
The contest over Magna Carta continued with John
and the pope on one side and the English people on
the other.
His successor, Henry Third, a lad of ten years,
was compelled by the legate to do homage for the
kingdom. But later Henry Fourth swore to give
the English people all the rights claimed by his
father for the barons. Magna Carta was renewed.
Indeed so much did the people regard it as the pal
ladium of their rights that successive sovereigns con-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 103
firmed it more or less times till the historian can
count thirty-eight such ratifications.
The synods in their legislation give views even by
their prohibitions of the progressing religious life.
One at Oxford in 1222 decreed excommunication
against those injuring the church in an}' of its
rights, or disturbing the peace of the kingdom, de
creed the same against any guilty of perjury or in
subordination or refusing to execute the king's
writs against those excommunicated. It said that
the clergy must not take part in trials involving
the loss of life, they must preach often and visit the
sick. Abbots, priors and abbesses must not take
money of those entering monastic life nor could
monks make the wills of people taking that step.
The Romish pressure continued for money so
much that the land was greatly impoverished. The
pope's draft upon the clergy was one-twentieth of
their property, then one-fifteenth, and again one-
tenth. The relations between the people and the
pope became acute. Mathew Paris, writing of those
times, gives a most distressing picture. The rights
of the English church were lost, ignoble prelates
sent from Rome trampled upon religious privileges,
interference from Rome became more and more ex
asperating, charity died, religion was held in con
tempt, for there was none but such as was repre
sented by the venial creatures from Rome, property
was seized, no Englishman could secure a prominent
place, and general degeneracy blighted all things.
Henry confirmed Magna Carta only to violate its
provisions. The Parliament in Oxford, 1258, un-

104 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
dertook to correct some of the royal abuses, a com
mission of twenty-four being appointed for this pur
pose, one-half from the king's Council and one-half
named by the barons. The reforms looked toward
correcting trespasses of the law, excess of demands,
conduct of king's officers, to secure tenants from
unjust exactions of their lords and that Parliament
must be held three times a year. But the plan was
a comparative failure since dissensions came into
the commission and the king was left to his own des
potic ways. The pope permitted Henry to violate
the provisions of Oxford made by the "Mad Parlia
ment," and he and his sons gathered an army, met
the barons on the field of Lawes, and defeated them.

CHAPTER XI
In the thirteenth century occurred one of those
remarkable revivals that have several times marked
the religious life of England. In the third decade
of that century the two kindred orders of monks,
the Dominicans and the Franciscans, came from the
continent where they had already succeeded most
admirably in arousing all classes of Christian work
ers. The Dominicans had begun to teach in the
universities the other side of the Channel and here
they at once pushed to Oxford, beginning the activi
ties there which soon gave them a commanding place
in that school. This place of vantage they held
through the decades following. Both orders were
pledged to poverty and other monastic vows and
they seem at first to have observed them.
The Franciscans went among the lowly people as
quickly as the Dominicans went into the universi
ties. There was call for such ministries, since the
condition of the masses already crowding into the
great cities, was most deplorable. Poverty, disease,
squalor, despair, had accumulated with such collec
tion of the masses. They were neglected by the
parish priests and by the old monastic orders, the
Cluniacs, Cistercians, and others, yet in their ig
norance and lowliness they knew their religious needs
and the worth of the gospel messages of the Fran
ciscans. The monks came to them clad only in
coarse gray garments such as the common people
105

106 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
wore, they went barefoot, lived in the meanest hovels,
ate the humblest fare and slept on straw or on a
board. Their teaching and preaching were of the
plainest kind, the simplest truths of the gospel,
with quaint words, apt stories, rude illustrations.
The people listened and were appreciative of the
self-sacrificing spirit of the newcomers. They
flocked to hear the evangel, causing them to mend
their ways and lives, so that uplift and change to
better things passed from slums and lowly things to
the upper classes and to their abodes. Hospitals,
lazar houses, monasteries, were established, a spirit
of human sympathy as never before pervaded the na
tion. Parish priests, monks, officials, bishops, were
profoundly moved with new energies. Many gutters
of corruption were filled instead with honest dealings
and purity of life. Medical skill learned by the
Franciscans ministered to the afflicted. Leprosy, so
prevalent in those centuries, was a special thought
of their care.
In time the Franciscans went into the universities
like the Dominicans. One product of their mental
and spiritual activity was that monkish marvel,
Roger Bacon. In him was centered all the learn
ing of the age so that the pope sent from Rome for
a statement of his knowledge and the great scholar
with scanty recognition labored years for the bishop
of Rome. Other scholars scarcely less able than he
were also produced among the crowds that thronged
to the lectures of those admirable teachers. But
after two or three generations it became the old
story of the orders before them, — they grew rich,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 107
having evaded their vows of poverty, they built great
monasteries which became places far removed from
their original vocation, negligence came as a dis
ease, they grew lazy, corrupt, and much of the good
coming in the great revival was lost, but not all.
The uplift of the people partly remained from which
they never wholly sank back.
An important synod was held in London in 1268
under the presidency of the papal legate, Othobon,
in which rules were laid down that, in some cases,
have been used in the English church ever since.
No pay was allowed for baptism and that service
was carefully looked after by the archdeacons and
parish clergy, strong ground was taken against
non-residency and intrusion, it renewed the right
of sanctuary, enjoined public marriages, and the
bishops were not allowed to bequeath the various
livings. If private chapels were built they were not
to use the living of the incumbent, nor were parish
tithes to be alienated from him. Excommunication
was to be taken off publicly, vigorous action was en
tered on against pluralities, simony or commendams,
bishops elect were to be examined in life and doc
trine, while secular business was forbidden the
churches. The custom now grew up for the laity to take
the sacrament in only one kind. They were told
that both the body and blood of the Savior were
present in consecrated bread but that the conse
crated wine as the real blood of Christ was to be
drunk by priests alone. At first this new custom
was introduced only among the very ignorant

108 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
classes. The sacrament was not to be given to any
one unconfessed and children baptized by a layman
were not afterward to be baptized by a priest. In
stead of hiding the sin of incest and kindred ones in
a priest the penance must be open. Priests were
required so to instruct the people that they would
not be ignorant of the teachings of the church.
Every quarter of the year they must tell the people
of the fourteen articles of faith, the ten command
ments, the two evangelical precepts of love, the seven
works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven
principal virtues, the seven sacraments. Of the ar
ticles of faith seven pertained to the mystery of the
Trinity and seven to the humanity of Christ. The
seven deadly sins were pride, envy, anger, hatred,
aversion to good and to religion, covetousness and
epicureanism. The seven principal virtues were
faith, hope, charity, prudence, temperance, justice,
fortitude. The seven sacraments were baptism, con
firmation, penance, eucharist, extreme unction, or
ders, matrimony. The priests besides teaching these
doctrines were required to preach upon points of
faith and doctrine. The people were required to
be present every Sunday at church to learn the faith.
Edward Second, coming to the throne In 1307,
soon aroused commotion among the clergy by his
levities, the matter so attracting the attention of the
pope that his interference provoked the king to
question his rights. Edward granted some of the
chaplains pluralities, and the bishop of Chester, who
had reproved him for his misconduct, he cast for a
brief time into prison.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 109
The Knights Templars, an outgrowth of the Cru
sades, who did valiant services in Palestine and in
the Mediterranean against the Saracens became
rich, had their houses in various countries of Eu
rope, the result of their wealth being that they fell
into such corruption and Intemperance that it was
considered necessary to suppress them. The rough
spirit of the age decreed this in 1312 at the Council
of Vienna when the governments of Europe pro
ceeded to carry out the papal mandate. In Eng
land they were seized, Imprisoned, scattered for
penance among the monasteries and their property
turned over to the kindred order of Hospitallers.
An important document was drawn up by the
archbishop of Canterbury, owing to the difference
of opinion of the right person to have charge of
the pai'ish. This paper, by its prohibitions, at least
defined negatively the duties of the parish priest,
and being made a law of Parliament called "Artlculi
Cleri," has had an effect upon the relations of state
and church all the way downward. It recognized
the fact that power in the crown of England is the
source of English constitution. When the arch
bishop died, the people, counting him a saint, so
crowded to his tomb that it had to be torn down.
In contrast to this the succeeding archbishop, Wal
ter Reynolds, on coming to the see secured eight
bulls from the pliant pope so absolving him from
canon law that he was allowed pluralities, the in
come of any collegiate church or cathedral, pardon
for crimes against clerks or others.
Under Edward Third matters became worse if

110 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
possible and one wonders if the teaching of the church
all those centuries was not almost in vain. One ray
of light was that a strong anti-cleric feeling was
engendered which gave promise of relief from the
corrupting hierarchy. In London and elsewhere
the clergy were murdered in the recurring riots.
In a contemporary song shocking bloodshed is
shown, the prelates are represented as so covered
with pride and covetousness as to drive divine peace
out of the land. Truth was forbidden in the court
of Rome and dared not appear among the cardinals,
simony and covetousness had the world at will.
When a church became vacant, so the song declared,
he who could give the most money to patron and
bishop, obtained it. Abbots and priors rode with
horses and hounds like knights, while poor men cow
ered all day at abbey-gates with hunger and cold.
Holy days became days of riot instead of devo
tion. The pope would name some one to fill an
important place against its becoming vacant and
then exact money for the promise of it. This led
to the famous "Provisors." Still another ray of
light shone in such moral night. The cities were
growing rich, burghers were increasing, villagers
were thinking and questioning about their rights,
intellect was astir, where all the money went was
asked, and the anti-cleric feeling was especially bit
ter against the great ecclesiastical houses which
stood in their immense wealth so vividly in contrast
with the squalid living of the people.

CHAPTER XII
The Black Death coming about the middle of the
fourteenth century from the east made direct devas
tations over Europe before the end of the century.
Owing to the limited medical insight and to the lack
of sanitary understanding, the ravages were incom
prehensible, a large share of the people dying off,
computed in some countries at one-half. As the
pestilence spread prelates tried to stop its ravages
by processions and by stations in the churches.
None seemed to think of sanitation. It was a time
when the noblest heroism could be shown or the most
abject cowardice. Both can be traced. In Eng
land some priests stood nobly by, and ministering,
died ; others fled from their parishes and posts, vainly
hoping to escape from the clutch of the destroyer.
The various religious houses, owing to their crowded
and unsanitary conditions, suffered terribly ; many
of them were totally depopulated and never again
occupied ; others were so denuded and frightened
that the ordinary offices of religion were neglected,
their property was ruined and their land became
unproductive. So few priests were left in some
parts that believers confessed to one another. Ex
treme unction was passed over and faith allowed as
a substitute. High church officials sent out exhortations to the
people to confess sins, to repeat forms of prayer
and psalms, form processions and undertake other
111

112 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
religious services. In It all church growth in the
century was checked, and few new buildings were
erected. Doubtless the people learning that many
of the offices of religion could be done by themselves,
and being taught to pray directly to the Heavenly
Father, reached a higher type of religious faith
than before.
Besides these various changes in church life the
Black Death in another way deeply influenced the
people toward better things. A general uplift of
the lower classes taking place, from that time on
ward those classes were never remanded to so low
a degree as before they had been compelled to oc
cupy. The startling death rate made the laborers
so decrease that the call for work from those re
maining was such that wages arose to an unprece
dented price and even then the ordinary labor could
not be secured. Servile labor almost totally ceased.
Claim for higher pay was demanded by the parish
priests, for along with the decay of industries had
come an increase in the cost of living. Before the
plague the ordinary pay of a parish priest had been
five marks a year ; now they would not serve for less
than ten pounds. Money was then worth about
twenty times as much as now. The bishops gen
erally refused sympathy to the parish priests who
were asking for higher pay, as the king stood re
lated to the laborers demanding better wages. By
various causes the classes drifted farther apart,
king from subject, bishop from clergy, land owner
from peasant.
Two important laws, Provisors and Premuinire,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 113
were enacted about the middle of the century, which,
with the changes in social life, the quickening of in
tellect, the spirit of independence developing, were
leading to a new order of things. Wyclif and
Chaucer and Langland were near. To this time
the baronage and clergy had worked much together,
now they were drifting apart. In a population of
three millions there were about twenty-five thousand
clergy and these it was claimed had one-third of
England's real estate and an income twice as large
as the king's. Even among themselves the clerics
were at odds, the higher ones busy in politics and
in little else, the lower shackled by poverty, regu
lars at swords' points with the seculars. The uni
versities complained that the friars were lessening
their students, yet in it all the people were climbing
upward and feeling firmer ground under their feet.
As his people demanded rights when he asked for
money Edward granted mitigations of hard royal
customs. Withal Edward was a pious prince, for
having refused peace proposals before the gates of
Paris, though urged by papal legates to do so, when
a mighty storm arose in which thousands were dy
ing about him he flung himself from his horse and
with outstretched arms vowed to the Virgin of
Chartres and to God that he would no longer reject
such proposals. Then as peace was made he and
John of France knelt together on the platform of
the church at Calais, with their hands on the Missal
and Paternoster.
The mutterlngs of the great movements of
WycHf's time were beginning to attract notice.

114 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Fault was again being found by Parliament with so
many places being filled by foreigners and the king
ordered every bishop to make investigations and re
port to the Chancery. The unrest, the cry for
truth, and the spirit of progress were at last to
find a potent voice. WycHf was in action. For
twenty years he had been lecturing, writing, think
ing, growing. By 1368 Wyclif was attracting no
tice by advancing propositions striking at the gov
ernment of the church and its vast property.
Wyclif was thoroughly educated in the universi
ties of western Europe, was of acute intellect, of
fearless spirit, of prodigious industry, one of the
ablest men ever produced by the Anglo-Saxon race.
That he was a bold thinker and able speaker was
shown by his lectures to the Oxford students.
WycHf's first great book, sent out in 1368, was "The
Kingdom of God," basing his objection of paying
tribute to Rome upon the fact that God is alone the
great Ruler. He struck a national chord strung
to that touch. The people from archbishop to peas
ant felt this but had scarcely dared say so. Then
his doctrine that relations between God and man
were effective without the interference of a priest
hood was to the clergy a frightful one. Wyclif
further taught that the priesthood had no real
right to the vast riches gathered into its hand, that
those riches could be seized and used for the na
tion's needs, and he adjured the clergy to dispossess
themselves of it, and return to apostolic simplicity.
The Convocation cited Wyclif before Bishop
Courtenay of London to answer the accusation of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 115
heresy. Wyclif responded to the citation at St.
Paul's, a discussion arose, in the tumult no trial
could be given, and Wyclif was rescued from the
mob by soldiers. Then a papal bull was sent to
the University of Oxford to condemn and arrest him
but he bade defiance to the order, boldly asserting
that no man could be excommunicated unless first
his conduct was such that he did that for himself.
He claimed that ecclesiastical questions and the
clergy should be subject to the civil courts, In this
having the mass of Englishmen with him. He did
obey, however, the summons of the archbishop to
appear at Lambeth palace to answer accusations,
but a sharp word from court stayed proceedings,
and a London mob broke up the primate's course.
It was now 1381, four years from the conflict
with the bishop of London. During this time had
occurred the Peasants' Revolt, for which historians
have been unable to make Wyclif responsible, though
many at that time thought he was. He denied
transubstantiatlon, the dogma of the real presence
of the blood and body of Christ in the consecrated
bread and wine of the eucharist. By denying this
cardinal doctrine of the Romish church, he was
entering the thin tip of the wedge which, driven home
by Luther and his coadjutors a century and a half
later, was to separate forever the northern nations
from the false tenets sent out from Rome and from
the incubus of the papacy. It was a mighty step
forward for Wyclif, and a dangerous one. It was
the baldest, terrlblest heresy. For heresy of vastly
less moment men had already scorched and died at

116 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the stake. One cannot but marvel at the supreme
bravery of the man. But he knew he was right.
Court and hierarchy were against him. The uni
versity now condemned him. But to all he answered
that they might show his teachings to be false If
they were able.
But he was not to stop here in his teachings. It
was not long before he denied pardons as made by
the clergy, also indulgences and absolutions; fur
ther, he repudiated utterly pilgrimages to saints'
shrines, the worship of their images and of the
saints themselves. He did these things by an ap
peal to the English people in a series of tracts
written in the vernacular, the earliest use of It made
by a master. By it he practically became the
founder of English prose. It was a brave attitude
to take toward the powers of the hierarchy, revolu
tionary toward the traditions wrought. into the very
life of the church, and subversive of the faith
trusted in for centuries. Again cited before a
synod, that of the Earthquake, at London, he stayed
away, but touched with supreme irony a union of
the prelates and monks against him with "Herod
and Pontius Pilate are made friends to-day."
Though in failing health he begged of the king to
let him prove publicly the truth of these new teach
ings. He also asked that all religious vows which
were such a burden to many might be suppressed,
that tithes might be given to the poor and the
clergy supported by the free offerings of the people.
He urged that the statutes of Provisors and
Premunire should be enforced against papal impo-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 117
sitions, that no churches should hold secular office,
and that imprisonment under the order of excom
munication might have an end.
The man was growing old and feeble. Oxford
was forced to expel him from among her teachers.
A quiet living, Lutterworth, was given him, but even
now his grandest work for the religious life of the
English people was to be done. That was to give
them a translation of the Bible from the classical
languages into their own tongue. Helped by able
fellow laborers, by Nicholas of Hereford, and when
he was imprisoned at Rome, aided by Purvey, an
able student, Wyclif persevered until the book was
all put into the speech of the common people. Of
the New Testament it is known that Matthew and
Mark were done by WycHf's own hand. With this
mighty power to use he was making great headway
in bringing to the people such opportunities to
think and act for themselves as never had been
granted them.
To help forward the truth he instituted a method
of work that under the impulse of the man and the
times was most effective. He organized a band of
"poor preachers" to go out among the people of
the country, these Itinerants taking with them the
new Bible to teach and preach, somewhat as the
mendicant friars had done till indolence and wealth
ruined them. WycHf's "poor preachers" went clad
in the russet garments of the English peasants, had
no pay, lived on the gifts of the poor people among
whom they went, and preaching and teaching the
new principles of the reformer everywhere met with

118 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the heartiest welcome. In the growing municipali
ties, like Oxford, London, Bristol, Leicester, and
others, the doctrines of Wyclif had deepest hold.
His work was not to be narrowed by a sect. The
queen was a princess of Bohemia, and partly by
her help the new doctrine was carried to her native
land to touch another Wyclif, John Huss, whose
teachings of the new way were to shake that king
dom for a generation, but finally to be drowned in
the blood of its leaders and believers.
The Lollards, who figured so prominently in the
age of Wyclif, were In their name and origin, if not
in their labors, an obscure folk. London was the
center of their activities, while the midland towns
were also strongly given to their teachings. Had
some great leader arisen after Wyclif, like Luther
or Wesley, It is possible that vastly more would have
come of the movement. As Henry Fourth ascended
the bloody throne the alarm caused by the sub
versive Lollards grew more stirring. They now
dared an appeal to Parliament setting forth their
opinions and their remonstrances against the con
ditions about them. In their zeal they declared that
since the church had yielded its temporalities to
Rome, faith, hope and charity had left her com
munion. They strongly protested against the
Romish priesthood, celibacy, and transubstantia
tlon, declared that exorcism and necromancy were
more trusted In than religion, urged that cleric and
secular power should not be held by the same man,
nor should men go on pilgrimages, offer prayers and
oblations to the images or to the dead, and uttered

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 119
their remonstrance against auricular confession and
war and capital punishment, as well as against un
necessary trades like that of goldsmiths and sword
cutlers. In 1401 the famous Statute of Heresy was en
acted by Parliament. The bishops were given a
free hand to arrest and imprison all preachers of
heresy, all schoolmasters affected with heretical
teachings, all owners and writers of heretical books,
and if after recantation they relapsed, they were to
be turned over to the civil power and burned on a
high place before the people. Now came a startling
epoch in English history. William Sautre, priest
of St. Osyth parish, London, having once recanted
came voluntarily before the Parliament to defend
what he had once recanted. Being accounted a re
lapse, he was arrested, convicted, and being turned
over to the civil authorities was burned at the stake.
William Thorpe, a priest, issued writings of such
a nature, a violent attack upon the established or
der, that he was accused of being a Lollard, yet his
teachings were not definite enough to send him to
the stake but only to prison. These writings be
came so popular that in their wide distribution they
were called "Thorpe's Testament." As the teach
ings of Wyclif were getting current among the stu
dents of Oxford it was ordered that any one tainted
with those teachings should be expelled.
The opinions of Wyclif, selected from his books
in large numbers were condemned in full congrega
tion at Oxford, and when further to suppress Lol-
lardism the archbishop essayed to visit Oxford, the

120 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
university refused to extend an invitation to him,
pleading papal privilege, but the king exasperated
by such a refuge compelled an invitation. The
heads of the institution resigned and the students
threatened to leave. New faculties were elected
and the pope annulled previous privileges. Still
more of WycHf's teachings to the number of three
hundred were denounced as heretical and also cen
sured by the archbishops and pope. The arch
bishop begged that the bones of Wyclif might be
dug from consecrated ground, but this the pope re
fused, it being the infamous order later of the Coun
cil of Constance to do that.
Besides Wyclif and the Lollards the Peasants'
Revolt helped to make memorable the latter part of
the fourteenth century. If a careful scrutiny is
given of that movement, several causes appear which
doubtless help to explain it. Even those lower
classes had begun to think. Thinking human beings
are not content in servitude. Masters have always
dreaded thinking slaves. Modern slavery would not
permit its servitors to learn letters.
The spirit of democracy aroused and fostered by
a wider knowledge of Christianity was another active
means leading to that revolt. Modern democracy is
largely a result of the teachings of the Galilean
Peasant. As those teachings were learned by the
English, giving glimpses of human rights, there arose
a spirit of assertion, consonant, too, with the old
Teutonic claim to man's freedom which had under
the feudal rule so long been denied the lowly.
Many of the small holdings of the people had been

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 121
obtained by the religious houses, the monks when
people were dying soliciting property for their
houses. Many of the nobility, also, by the surpris
ing habits of litigation into which the people fell,
and by the subtile courses of the lawyers, became
the devourers of the smaller allotments of the lower
classes. Still another very forceful cause of unrest
and most repulsive to violence was the great burden
of taxes and the remorseless way the collectors ex
acted them of the poverty-smitten people. Be
tween the king's wars and the pope's extravagances
property was ground to a very thin substance.
The privileges of the upper classes both in state and
church were in such contrast to the condition of the
lower classes as to be well-nigh unbearable.
And yet much all along had been done for the
poor and needy in a systematic way. A sick fund
was made a national concern for the aged, or for
ill paupers, the landlords paying a tenth of their
produce, in some instances. Into collegiate churches
for the sick, the monks becoming the almoners for
such charity funds. Royal bands often poured
out money bounteously to meet indigent needs. A
special ward was held open in the monasteries for
tramps who were kept In it over night and the next
day, well fed, departed to find work or continue
tramping. Even the Crusades were a help to the
poor, for with the turbulent spirits away, the
clergy could better carry on their peaceful work.
For some of the pastors were always preaching
emancipation seeking manumission of serfs and
slaves at the death bed of the nobility as a merit in

122 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
heaven, the clergy often setting an example of these
things in their own estates. The Crusaders return
ing with enlarged views could appreciate the good
work thus done by the clerics, and uphold it.

CHAPTER XIII
By the close of the thirteenth century the Crusades
had run their course for two hundred years. As in
all great world movements there was a blending of
good and evil in them. To rescue the city and sepul-
cher of Jesus from the hands of another religious
faith was the core of the movement, that being the
burden of Peter the Hermit's preaching and of Ur
ban at the Council of Clermont. Plenary absolution
and indulgence were granted those going and many
other ecclesiastical Immunities. No wonder in so
rude and warlike an age, when hardly a man's hand
was stainless of another man's blood, that the promise
of remission of sins in this life and certain felicity in
the other were strong Incentives to go on a crusade.
If primarily a religious movement, pillage, war, ad
venture, sightseeing, were not forgotten. Edward,
before coming to the kingship, evidently thought he
could do his father good service by leading turbulent
spirits out of the kingdom to use their energies
against the Saracens. To raise money for this cru
sade a tenth of church revenues for three years was
granted and one-thirtieth of all the goods of the
laity, rich and poor. The pope and clergy entered
with much energy into the purpose of the Crusades,
declaring Inviolate the property or province of one
on a crusade, using excommunication and other
church weapons in their defense. If one taking vows
to go backed out, he was refused admittance to any
123

124 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
church, and interdicts were extended over his prop
erty and lands. Such a one could, however, escape
by heavy penance, many churches and other religious
houses being built by those delinquents.
Akin to the crusade in spirit was the passion for
pilgrimages. Rome, after Jerusalem, was the city
most attractive for devotees, many men and women
counting greatly on the religious merit gained for
both worlds by having visited the holy city, for hav
ing seen the pope and received his blessing, and for
worshiping and praying at its holy places. Just at
the close of the fourteenth century a remarkable
tide of such pilgrimages set towards Rome, people
flocking there by millions. The English people were
not behind others. By such pilgrimages the papacy
was magnified in two ways at least, money being so
freely given that priests stood at the altars with
rakes to pull it uncounted into the coffers. Then
these devotees would return to their home lands,
happy with the sense of the papal blessing or other
favor, to be strenuous supporters of His Hoh
ness. But most pilgrimages were not as pretentious as
those to Rome or Jerusalem. The tombs of specially
devout saints or of some renowned martyr, the cell of
a noted anchorite, or shrine of peculiar sanctity, at
tracted multitudes. The shrine of Our Lady of Wal-
singham was frequented by thousands to worship and
pray, or else to secure healing of their maladies.
From the start Becket's tomb at Canterbury became
a place to which the devout, the curious and fashion
able crowded, and the widely read Canterbury Tales

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 126
are of a party representative, it may be supposed,
of English life going on a pilgrimage to that tomb.
It was the plan and study of the monks to secure
sacred and remunerative relics. To obtain such
relics even violence, broken heads and bleeding
wounds were given and received over the dead body
of some one likely to bring pilgrims and money to a
religious house.
When, In 1413, Henry Fifth came to the throne,
he threw aside the companions of his youthful ex
uberance and undertook to lead a clean and pious
life. The day of his father's death he spent in pri
vacy and prayer with his chosen confessor, a recluse
of Westminster. He appealed to the clergy and the
laity to show their Christian activity and character.
But the fearful Lollards were still troublesome. The
earl of Shaftsbury having headed a revolt that had
some relation with Lollardry, was captured and be
headed, and the clergy of London In procession, sing
ing psalms and thanksgivings, met the gory head. A
truly militant then arose among them, Sir John Old-
castle, Lord Cobham, and placards were posted on
the church doors of London, saying the Lollards
would maintain their opinions by force of arms. Sir
John was a brave soldier, was liked by the king, and
was influential in London and adjoining regions.
Being accused of various church delinquencies he was
brought before the archbishop, when he declared that
he would seek absolution from none but God, point
edly disclaimed transubstantiatlon, penance, confes
sion and worship of the cross, said the pope was
Anti-Christ, that the real successor of St. Peter was

126 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the man that was most holy, and loudly declaimed
against the prelates and his judges. Thrown into
the Tower he escaped, called his friends and started
a rebellion which was nipped in the bud by the king's
activity in dispersing the rabble at Giles' Field. A
fugitive to Wales, Oldcastle headed another band of
armed men, was defeated, and finaHy captured and
suffered for treason. Again, in 1414, the Commons
moved to sequestrate the temporalities of the church,
and a counter accusation was made against the Lol
lards that they were holding meetings to destroy the
church, the king, and the laws of England.
To the famous Council of Constance the English
church sent twenty-one delegates. The spirit of
reformation was in the very air, but the Council,
thinking it would come only through regular church
channels, were ready to declare that what was not
exactly in conformity to church ways to be heresy
and its advocates to deserve death. Hence, John
Huss and Jerome of Prague, though coming to the
Council under the safe conduct of the German em
peror, were burned as heretics. A formal condemna
tion of WycHf's teachings was made and the bones
of the mighty reformer were ordered dug up and
burned. Even then, in England, the spirit of reform
was operative, since the University of Oxford under
direction of the king sent the Council of Constance a
remonstrance against indulgences being hawked
about, urging that excessive fees should not be
charged by the Roman Curia, nor benefices conferred
in commendam, denouncing the habits of nepotism,
pluralities, non-residences, intrusion of alien incum-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 127
bents, exemption of monasteries, cleric worldliness
and immoralities.
Henry Fifth in many ways showed a devout, pro
gressive mind, pointing the road to Henry Eighth
as well as preparing the people for the Reformation.
But he missed the opportunity himself of a great re
form, for the Lollards furnished what might have
been the groundwork of a deep, fruitful reformation
had he allied himself with them.
By the statute of heresy and the death of Salis
bury and of Oldcastle, the prominence of the Lol
lards gave way. But as late as 1449, the "Bible
Men," as they dubbed the Lollard preachers, were so
aggressive as to call forth Bishop Pecock's book
against them, "Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy."
Indeed, Lollardry was never wholly suppressed and it
helps to explain the facility with which the people
accepted the separation from Rome under Henry
Eighth, and the hearty acceptance of Luther's teach
ings from Germany. Hatred of the friars and their
foundations was gradually fanned into a flame.
From the Conquest onward there was a most un
satisfactory condition of the monasteries. What
revival of religious purity and earnestness was
brought in by the priors and abbots whom the Con
queror introduced from Normandy, did not long per
sist. At one time and another many orders of friars
had entered England, usually doing noble service for
a while and then degenerating. Their houses, grown
rich, led to indolence that breeded vice, and laziness
which led to deterioration. The Carthusians, coming
after the Conquest, had vows in accordance with what

128 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
was thought necessary and marked by great severity.
They wore sackcloth, never ate any flesh, fasted Fri
days on bread and water, ate alone in their cells save
on special holidays, kept perpetual silence, none but
officers leaving the house, and no women being per
mitted to attend their services.
Not long after the Conquest came the Cistercians,
the order being the result of an Englishman's intense
purpose to reach a better way of monastic living.
Stephen Harding, a monk, went to Rome and return
ing entered a Benedictine monastery at Molesme,
France, but finding things there not in accordance
with their rule, he raised a controversy yet was un
able to have the monastery as a whole come to his
views. However, the abbot and eighteen monks with
drew and going with Harding to Cistercium, in
Chalons, were encouraged by the bishop In setting up
an abbey. In time Harding became abbot and the
new order as a revival and reform of Christianity
greatly flourished. In the times of Henry First
and Stephen, England was stirred most profoundly
in its religious life, a movement of devout passion
taking place similar to those under Wyclif and
Wesley. Other orders also stirred the English life, some
coming from the continent, others organized on
English soil. The famous Franciscans and Do
minicans, like the other orders, perpetuated them
selves in rich foundations and have continued to the
present day. But all of these orders have separated
widely from their original enthusiasm and success.
These conditions made the monks and friars offen-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 129
sive to a large share of the English people. By the
time of Henry Fifth, their offense began smelling to
Heaven. Even their hospitals and almshouses were
gradually abandoned by these religious men. If
manuscripts were produced they were for display, not
for use. Owing to their immunities and riches the
abbots became ostentatious, having large retinues
when they went abroad. To many of the great
houses were outlying manors, chantries and cells,
which often became places of scandal.
A better reputation belonged to the nunneries,
though the luxurious living of prioresses sometimes
caused dissatisfaction, while now and then the quar
relsome nuns were thrust into a dark room until
they could learn to live in peace. The establishments
were not so large as those for men, were obscure and
less influential. The nuns were teachers, the con
vents were schools for girls, boarders were taken into
them, and charity was given. On the whole they
were places of peace and refinement where the re
ligious life as then comprehended and practiced found
place for development.
The treatment of the Jews by the English in those
centuries forms a curious chapter in the religious
life. The well-known favor shown them by the Con
queror and by Wiliam Rufus brought them from the
continent in great numbers to push money affairs
with their accustomed zeal and success. They were
permitted to build synagogues for their own worship,
but they were always treated with aversion for their
religious views and with suspicion and hatred for the
modes of their financial dealings. By the Christians

130 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
it was considered wrong in those times to take interest
on money, they confounding that with the term usury
in the Bible, but the Jews had no such scruples.
They readily took Interest, often owing to the exigen
cies of the situation or the passing need of the bor
rower, taking high rates not only as interest but in
those unsettled times as security of the loan. So
great was the disHke of them that a riot broke out
against them In York while King Richard was ab
sent on a military expedition, and five hundred of
them, taking refuge and defending themselves in a
fortification, offered to surrender if their lives were
pledged them, but this poor pity being denied, the
men like the Jewish zealots at Masada, Palestine, de
stroyed their wives and children and then killed
themselves. Finally in the reign of Edward First,
1290, they were totally banished from England. To
the number of fifteen thousand they were sent to the
continent, the king putting his hand on one-fifteenth
of their property. A few turned Christians to
escape banishment, but in spite of the efforts of the
friars and king their number was small. As the poor
refugees were being conveyed away they were plun
dered and killed by the shipmasters ; and thus robbed,
banished, murdered, their treatment helped to close
one of the saddest episodes of brutality, ignorance,
and mistaken zeal in those backward centuries.
Hardly less brutal treatment was accorded the ma
jority of the EngHsh nation, the slaves and serfs.
In the Anglo-Saxon period many who had once been
freemen became by the disasters of war, poverty,
sickness or other misfortunes, thralls or slaves, churls

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 131
or serfs. The Norman Conquest gave slight change
for the better to those classes, while the church all
along had a good-will influence among those lowly
Englishmen. The Magna Carta makes one little
mention of those lowly classes, that a villein should
not be amerced so as to lose his wainage, his cart and
plows. Their gradual enfranchisement came in the
universal progress of the nation toward better things
more than by law or legislative enactment.

CHAPTER XIV
The decay of Feudalism going on through this
period was allowing benefits to the masses of English
men, permitting them to learn more of the religious
life and to cultivate it better, for in its flower, feudal
ism left few men with any considerable rights.
Feudalism did not prevail in England till the Norman
Conquest. The theory and practice were that every
one holding land did so from one superior to him.
Thus the whole land belonged to the king, the lands
of the barons and lords were held by them through
permission of the sovereign, each subordinate land
holder by permission of earl, baron, or other overlord.
The superior could control the marriage of the
daughters of the lower order, could exact great sums
at their weddings so that. In fact, the women were
sold and often in such a way to the highest bidder
that it was shameful. In a similar way money was
exacted when the son was knighted. The completed
military service was also demanded and rendered.
The spirit of feudalism was not patriarchal or even
patronizing, it was mostly brutal. The reverence
claimed for woman, though confined to those of high
degree, probably aided in the gradual elevation of all
women. The worship of the Virgin was also a potent
force in woman's favor. One good thing of feudal
ism, as distinct from chivalry, was that it laid the
care of the aged, poor and infirm upon those above
them. On Monday, /Thursday and at other times,
/ 133

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 133
the sovereigns set the example of ministering service
by washing the feet of the aged indigent, and also in
other ways. This show of a lowly. Christlike work
was followed by certain high-born men and women
in deeds of beneficence and kindly human sym
pathy. Free thought and wider education were also helping
on the death of feudalism. Then, too, the teaching
of equality by the preachers, the leveling tenets of
the church, and the democracy of the Scriptures,
though poorly comprehended, were yet doing their
noble work. Also the poems of Chaucer, of Gower
and Langland, as well as the homely adages and bal
lads of the people, were pregnant with the seeds of
death to a system no longer endurable.
By the closing half of the fifteenth century, feu
dalism may be said to have totally disappeared from
England. Edward Fourth had overridden the
feudal baronage and the feudal power of the church
heirarchy. Parliament by its growing powers,
especially in the commons, had aided the change.
Men were no longer speechless under ecclesiastical
fears. But with these changes, and nothing wholly
able to take the place in society of those aborted
forces, the scene presented Is most appalling. De
bauchery marked all classes from king to serf, rapine
made all property unsafe, cruelty dragged a trail of
blood across both Roses, deceit and duplicity were the
common ways of dealing. The remorseless way of
kings, princes and nobles In supplanting one another,
in confiscations, in bloody murders, were those of
gigantic robbers. Warwick was a monster of lust

134 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
and cruelty and for a time Edward Fourth was his
creature In these excesses.
Another means for helping forward the people in
the less spectacular way of church life was the guilds.
They existed In the remote Anglo-Saxon life, but by
the fourteenth century they had grown to such num
bers as to be found in every town of importance.
The merchants seem to have been earliest and most
active In forming guilds, and were followed by
artisans, laborers, and others who saw the benefits in
such organizations. It was partly an assertion of
rights fostered by the religious insight deepening in
those years, and by the independent feeling becoming
more and more active. If the guilds were mostly
among the laymen still they were In pleasing partici
pation with religious festivals and processions.
They greatly encouraged religious pageants, such,
for instance, as represented scenes of the Bible, and
later the mystery plays were mostly under their aus
pices. These plays, based on religious subjects and
designed to teach the people the elements of Chris
tianity, formed a large part of such teachings attain
able by the masses. Towns, as Chester, York, Bev
erly and Coventry, became noted places for their pro
duction. The priests usually wrote the plays and
often were the actors under the patronage and with
the aid of the guilds. In one procession at a mystery
play as many as ninety-six crafts joined. Such
pageants would sometimes last three days, being so
conducted through the streets that quite a distinct
outline of Old Testament scenes and New Testament
teachings would be delineated.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 136
Besides this purpose the guilds had a pleasing
charitable object, since they usually made provision
for those suffering from various human infirmities
which, owing to bad sanitation and ignorance of med
ical practice, were more prevalent than now. The
guild of Corpus Christi, York, provided eight beds
for poor strangers and hired a woman to attend
them. In some guilds payment was made in time of
health, then if sickness or want came, certain sums
were given to those In need. In other guilds provi
sion was made for repairing roads, town walls or
bridges. Church repairs claimed the attention of
some guilds while free schools and schoolmasters were
furnished by others.
That the object was high and the practice en
nobling can be seen by the expulsion of those failing
in morality, industry, or in religious duty. Among
the obligations taken were to pray that the living
might be worthy to win God's fatherhood and that
the dead might have their torments lightened.
Prayer and services In the churches formed an im
portant part of their duties. On some fast day they
would pass in great procession with banners and
hymns to the church, dressed in their peculiar uni
form, attracting vast attention along the quaint
street. For more than three centuries the miracle
plays and guilds were continued. In 1388 Parlia
ment ordered returns to be made of all the guilds in
the kingdom, of their condition, charter, property
and other matters.
The schools in England, as found by the Normans
connected with the churches and monasteries, were

136 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
carried on with hardly more change than to improve
them under the devoted and more learned clerics in
troduced from the continent by the Conqueror and
his immediate successors. The three-fold course of
study, called the trivium, consisted of Latin, Logic
and Rhetoric. Later the course was broadened to
the quadvirium, a four-fold course, these being the
science of arithmetic, or numbers, geometry, includ
ing geography ; music, including harmony with nota
tion, astronomy, the Ptolemaic system being followed,
with astrology, though this latter was finally given
up. The diocesan schools occupied the field alone
for some time, although the broader foundations of
Oxford and Cambridge at length won precedence.
Still others were founded, as that in Rotherham by
Rotherham in his native town. In this college, in
addition to the course leading to the priesthood, was
one for teaching those not Inclined to the clerical
course in mechanical arts, writing and arithmetic and
kindred secular studies. It continued to the time of
Edward Sixth. The name of Wykeman, bishop of
Winchester, is fragrant among students, for with
his great wealth he founded a school as early as
1366, and the St. Mary's for poor boys in 1373,
and fourteen years later the New College at Oxford.
In this were provisions for two hundred pupils from
the lowest grades of study to the highest. Besides
these he founded other schools as feeders for the New
College and on this account is claimed as the founder
of the public school system of England.
The origin of Oxford University is obscure but
several schools at that place doubtless of church oj

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 137
monastic founding, were early established. The
chantry school of St. Frideswide has sometimes
borne the honor of beginning the university, but
probably it must share that honor with others. By
the early part of the thirteen century Oxford had
gained a first place in England. No delightful pic
ture is preserved since students were ill housed in
the basest lodgings, along the filthy lanes of a
medieval town, subject to poor foods, to sickness and
other causes of squalor. They were given to drink
ing, quarreling, gambling. Frequent riots took
place, a favorite deed being to wreck the houses of
the Jews. Rivalry between the north and Scots and
south or Kentish men, led to squabbles sometimes end
ing fatally, the head of the University and the
Mayor of the town often being put to their wits'
end to keep order.
But out of such untoward conditions and such a
hodge-podge of study and violence, of vice and
crime, came many noble scholars and enlargement of
vision that helped to kill feudalism, to elevate the
church, and to aid the magnificent race forward to
the better things. Before the friars had gained
their foothold at Oxford, theology was threatened
with a subordinate place but those devout vassals
of the pope made it their object to place theology
in its proper condition. This victory caused an in
crease of students until the numbers rivaled even
Paris, and from it teachers were sought for the con
tinental universities. Such was the influence of the
friars, that the colleges became so monkish in form
that vows and celibate lives were required; like con-

138 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
vents they were self-governing, they could hold land
in mortmain, had prayers for founders and anni
versary days for them, and fellows were required
to take holy orders.
The origin of Cambridge University is somewhat
better in hand for it is known that Jaffrid, the ab
bot of Croyland, sent four of his men to the town
of Cambridge to open a school for obtaining money
to aid the building of that monastery. They be
gan their teaching in a barn and being good teachers
soon attracted a large number of pupils, so many,
indeed, that to direct them they had to be divided into
groups. Much money was secured by the devoted
monks to rebuild Croyland Abbey, but a vaster good
was unknowingly done by them in founding for the
Anglo-Saxon race a great university.
In his native town of Higham Ferrars, Archbishop
Chicheley founded a college with a faculty of twenty,
a part of whose duty it was to pray for the souls of
the dead. He also set up a hospital at the same
place. As the fourteenth century was passing, prel
ates and others so clearly saw the need of schools
that numbers of them were founded. So great was
the scholastic activity that it is said at the begin
ning of the fifteenth century England had seventy-
eight colleges, and one hundred ninety-two hospitals
in many of which were also church schools. The
following century added sixty schools and charity
foundations, but only eight religious houses. Mon-
archism was smitten with decay in the presence of
mental and spiritual growth.
As the fifteenth century opened and sped along

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 139
college after college was added to the two great
universities. Margaret, Countess of Richmond,
founded St. John's, Cambridge, Henry Sixth, in
1441, founded the famous Eton, and at Cambridge,
King's College, as well as making large gifts to two
Oxford colleges. Eton has been a fitting school from
that time to this for the universities, at first for
those born of aristocratic blood, later, of all bloods.
Elizabeth, queen of Edward Fourth, founded Queens'
College that was further fostered by Margaret,
queen of Henry Sixth. The foundation by the two
queens throws the possessive after the plural queens
to distinguish it from Queen's College, Oxford.
Views can be obtained of the studies pursued, for
it is known of the seventy students in one college
that ten were to study civil law, ten canon law, two
medicine, two astronomy, and the remainder art or
theology. Lincoln College was founded especially
to oppose WycHf's teachings, the object being to
combat intellectual dissent by intellectual improve
ment. WycHf's work as well as the War of the
Roses had injured the schools of every grade.
Out of the decay of the monastic life grew a
scholastic product of great worth. Monastery
properties were offered for sale so cheaply by the
chapters that Bishop Wykeman and others made
purchases at such low price that great endowments
were readily made for the schools. During the
French wars, 1402-14, the French priories in Eng
land were confiscated to the number of one hundred
twenty-two and this property in some Instances was
used to found schools. Schools of low grade were

140 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
established in great numbers to which the small
children could go. By 1486, twenty-three grammar
schools were opened in different parts of the king
dom in addition to the monastic and cathedral
schools. For centuries the children of thralls and
peasants had been denied schooHng, the upper classes
fearing the results of allowing them to obtain educa
tion. The Lollards, however, true to manhood's
needs, opened schools for such low classes, this being
one of the complaints of enactments against those
sectaries. As London grew it petitioned for the privilege of
setting up schools and other towns followed the lead
of the metropolis. Schools without charter or other
right of existence save the need of them, were set
going and dubbed "Adulterine" schools, but such
defiance of church right was opposed and they were
mostly suppressed, for the clergy considered it one
part of their duty to teach the children about them
some knowledge of letters. It is certain that into
the conventual schools a few were admitted who were
not specially looking toward the priesthood. Some
of the grammar schools carrying on primary work
till one was fitted for the universities became of
note, as Beverly, Ripon, and Southwell. At Ox
ford and Cambridge such schools existed under direc
tion of university authority. The guilds also, under
the growing sense of personal worth fostered by the
religious life, founded schools, one duty of the guild
chaplain being to act as schoolmaster. From these
schools, not clerics but lay people, were to draw
benefit. So universal were the schools that possi-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 141
bly the only class wholly illiterate were the slaves.
The founders of those old colleges knew the
worth of libraries and sought to furnish their founda
tions with choice manuscript books. Baliol College
had two hundred left it by Chancellor Gray in 1442.
Three-fourths of a century before that Oriel College
possessed about one hundred volumes. To the New
College Wykeman gave two hundred forty. If
money was worth about twenty times as much then
as now, the ten pounds that the Bible cost at the
end of the fourteenth century would represent two
hundred pounds or a thousand dollars. So it can
be seen that the comparatively few volumes in those
libraries were still of great cost.
The Norman clergy and laity as they came to
England found in architecture hardly anything that
could be termed art, the churches and religious
houses being mostly of poor pattern and miserable
construction. With power and wealth at hand they
sought to give expression to their religious life and
artistic sense by erecting ornate edifices. The few
fine buildings they found, as St. Paul's and St.
Peter's in London, were below their idea of fitness so
that they entered upon refitting or rebuilding even
those finest ones. In ecclesiastical buildings during
this period, instead of civil or military ones, the
deepening life of England found means of speaking.
The style changed from the Romanesque to the Nor
man, for a people so highly developed as the Nor
mans were certain to have an art of their own.
Priories, abbeys, hospitals and other buildings were
erected and usually named after some saint, ancient

142 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
or local, as a mark of reverence and also to gain the
intercessory power of that saint for the founder,
the chapter, or the locality. Those buildings as
well as the cathedrals, were often of great size, as
if devotion could be increased by such overwhelming
vastness as to dwarf man in comparison.
The Norman type of architecture with modified
rounded arch gave way three hundred years after
the Conquest to the Gothic or Early EngHsh with
clustered columns and painted windows. It was a
renascence of Christian art. A person now wan
dering in amazement about one of those vast piles
with extended, uplifted nave, the transepts with the
nave making the form of a cross, seeing the choir,
the chapel, statuary, stained windows, gilt and
marble, and accumulated riches of centuries, is com
pelled to acknowledge that men who could plan and
erect such stately, beautiful, overwhelming temples
of worship, must have had greatness of heart as
well as elevated genius for architecture. The few
attempts at other art besides architecture were in
the religious spirit, such as the painting on the walls
at the Confessor's shrine at Westminster and in
some other churches. But all the efforts were crude.
A few attempts to cut sculpture, figures of the saints
and of the Christ were also very crude, as were the
paintings of similar subjects designed to teach the
people Scriptural truths by those means. The most
successful art among the people, next to architec
ture, was the Illumination of their priceless manu
scripts. These being produced almost exclusively
by the cloistered monks were the work of leisure and

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 143
love since they were mostly copies of religious books.
With a people having the strong spirit of the
Anglo-Saxon race, emerging from barbarism and
deep ignorance even into the Christian faith, it could
not be but that many ill customs and bad manners
would cling to them. A continuous effort was made
to bring Christian teachings to the comprehension
of the people so as to lead to better conduct, but
it required a long course of religious instruction and
of religious progress to overcome so many pernicious
ways. Fairs, like those in connection with miracle
plays, and days of sales were made partly religious
occasions by the church services held at those times.
Saints' days were prolific of fairs, combining as then
was thought the right way, the secular and the re
ligious. On Sunday, the villein, as service was going
on in the church, could hang his slaughtered lamb
or pig for sale on the church door and for the same
purpose could bring his cattle into the church yard.
The coarse habits of the nobility seem to have
conferred lease of similar manners upon the common
people. Bear-baiting and bull-baiting were sports
of the lower classes. When the retinue of Henry
First was going with him from place to place, it
practiced most brutal barbarities upon the people
along the route, harassing and plundering them,
eating and drinking In their houses, compelling the
people to bring food and drink, then without ap
parent human feeling would visit unspeakable out
rages upon both men and women.
These and similar brutalities were but eddies in
the great forward current. As an expression of

144 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
the softening spirit was the foundation of hospitals
and other benevolent houses. Owing to lack of
sanitation leprosy became a common disease and for
it hospitals were founded, and from this, as a first
thought, others were established for various diseases.
Some of those institutions founded as far back as
the fourteenth century have continued with cumula
tive worth until the present. These hospitals
whether built by the prelates, by orders, or by rich
laymen, were always established under church direc
tion.

CHAPTER XV
Contemporary private writings of the fifteenth
century show that the religious spirit, in many of
the middle classes at least, was active and thought
ful. The Paston Letters, covering a large portion of
the fifteenth century, a collection of large private
correspondence, have Invaluable information of many
kinds, are most interesting, give insight of family,
public and religious life, and much history not
otherwise attainable.
One son of the family begs his mother to go pray
at the "Rood of Northerdor," meaning the north
door of St. Paul's, and "Seynt Savyour at Bar-
monsey," and his sister Margery also, that she might
obtain a good husband. Their piety found expres
sion in another way for Clement Paston made
legacies to the High Altar, to the vicar of Paston
for tithes, for lights for St. Margaret, for lights
for the Rodeloft church, for repairing church, to
the Trunch church, for Mouslee church, and to the
Convent of Brownholm. Another member of the
family made donations among the poor and the
prisoners of London. Glimpses are also obtained
of the frequent pilgrimages then in vogue on which
members of this family went, while nobles and even
the king and queen are shown going to the tomb of
Becket at Canterbury with the great crowds flock
ing to it. The will of Margery, the strongest char-
145

146 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
acter in this remarkable family. Is illuminating in
the field of devotion. In it she commends her soul
to Almighty God, to Our Lady His blessed Mother,
to St. Michael, to St. John Baptist, and to All
Saints. She made gifts to several churches and
to different orders of the friars, to chapels, hos
pitals and other religious houses that they might
serve mass and keep continuous prayers for her
soul. In the literary productions given to the world
during this period the religious Hfe is most vividly
pictured. The treatises of Landfranc and others of
a controversial kind, the lives of prominent church
men by Eadner and his fellows, the history of
cathedrals and monasteries by Turgot, Selcord and
men of their spirit, the chronicles of abbeys and of
royal deeds and of current history by such monks
as Odericus, Malmesbury, Geoffrey and others, all
are very storehouses of contemporary information
from which all writers have drawn. Little literary
work was done except by churchmen, though one, a
merchant, wrote of a pilgrimage to Palestine. Lay
men deemed letters worthless or a weakness. The
Table Talk of Henry Second, by Walter Map, was
made up of stories of monks, miracles, satires on
contemporary hypocrites, and of other religious
phases of the day. This same man had much to do
in nationalizing the legends of King Arthur, the
story of the Holy Grail and other parts of that
series. "Goliath," a biting satire on the self-seek
ing prelates and corrupted monks, was a protest
against things not Christlike in churches and society,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 147
a spirit which beginning then has never ceased to
the present. One sign of progress was that Laya-
mon, in 1200-6, wrote in the vernacular, when be
fore Latin or French had been used alone In literary
work. Ormulum and Ancren Rewle were written for
the purpose of teaching the people and nuns the
way of right living. Heroes of legends were all
pious souls, Hereward, so devout as to have a priest,
Friar Tuck, always with him so as to render mass
three times a day, while Havelock "loved God with
all his might."
Roger Bacon seems to have been one of the few
great men given of Heaven to enliven and enlighten
human minds. As thoroughly educated as the times
could yield, of independent spirit, he became a
Franciscan friar, attracted to them no doubt by
their renown in letters. The pope's request for him
to write out for papal delectation all he knew, re
sulted in his writing, "Opus Ma jus," an encyclopedic
book for that age. His Independent research and
untrammeled mind were a presage of later freedom
of thought. Songs, fables, satires, sayings, existed
among the people directing and stimulating to the
piety of the lower classes. Some were metrical
paraphrases of the Bible, others of religious duties,
prominent clerics not being above preparing such
modes of instruction for the people. "Gesta
Romanorum" was the name given to a great collec
tion mostly of religious cast, primarily prepared for
preachers to enliven their sermons and homilies, as
the friars had done to make their addresses more in
teresting to their auditors. This collection gathered

148 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
from all sources was drawn on by such Hterary men
as Chaucer, Gower and Shakespeare.
By the middle and last of the fourteenth century
a great epoch of inteHectual fruitfulness came to
England. In It are the names of Chaucer, Gower,
Langland, WycHf, and others hardly less known.
John Gower, dubbed by Chaucer as "The Moral
Gower," wrote three books, two of which are pre
served. These, "Vox Clamantis" and "Confesslo
Amantis," both in Latin verse, cry out for better
moral and religious conditions. He hides under
the semblance of the tender passion, stories from the
Bible and from classic literature, designing by these
stories to be a preacher of righteousness to the
people of his time against the seven deadly sins. In
a similar vein was Richard Ralle's "Prick of Con
science," describing the popular belief of the day
that bad and good angels waited at the bedside of
the dying to secure the fleeting soul.
Possibly the book that had the profoundest in
fluence for righteousness at that time, though not
the best literature, was the "Vision of Piers the
Plowman." The author, John Langland was, like
Ralle, a clerk but of so loose a profession as to have
a wife and daiighter. Langland's poem in the
vernacular was for the common people. A dreamer,
like Bunyan, he sees In his vision that the scandalous
evils of the day, darkening life in church and state,
can be remedied by three forces. Do Well, Do Bet
ter, Do Best.
While Langland was the poet of the lowly,
Chaucer, his contemporary, was the poet of the noble.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 149
As Langland lived among the toilers of the street
and field, Chaucer reveled in court with knights,
earls and princes, singing for them. No literary
star shone so bright until the rise of Shakespeare.
Through his eyes we can see the Englishmen of the
fourteenth century. Their habits, morals, religion,
manners good and bad, are a very medley of life.
The story of Canterbury Tales, charming all who
read it, pictures a company of twenty-nine persons,
well representing all phases of English life at that
time, going on a pilgrimage to Becket's shrine, and
to relieve the tedium of travel each one is to tell
some stories, though the plan was only in part car
ried out. If the characters are truly represented
and the spirit shown also true, and doubtless the
poet takes his readers along the path of actual con
ditions, the religious life in the ranks higher than
shown in "Piers Plowman" needed a conscious reform.
From the time of Wyclif, Langland and Chaucer
onward, the incisive English became a mighty living
power in reform and progress. When the common
speech of the masses hungering for the truth became
the speech of the reformer's pamphlets, of the poems
of genius, of the translated Bible and the volumes of
religious controversy and doctrine, then the way was
laid for better religious life and whatever great
movements would come In attendance. The legends
of King Arthur and of the Holy Grail were, it is pos
sible, doing some good like the noble deeds of
chivalry for purity and faith. "The Plowman's
Crede" a product of the closing years of the four
teenth century is sometimes joined with "Piers Plow-

160 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
man," but it is probably from an unknown author.
The plowman in this poem, not having learned the
creed though knowing the Ave Marie and Pater
noster, goes to one friar after another only to be
turned away with contempt, but at last finds in an
unkempt toiler at the plow one who teaches a short
creed, charity toward a sufferer. The War of the
Roses made a dearth of mental activity, the church
life as well as the national Hfe sinking to a low ebb.
But in the horizon two mighty forces were assisting
to electrify the race, the printing press and the
renascence period. And these were vital helps to
ward the Reformation.
The constitutional growth had much to do with
the religious progress since the grand object of
Anglo-Saxon constitution is to give to man, as man,
his natural rights. This spirit is also a directing
force in Christianity. The New Testament is a
great Bill of Rights, a Charter of personal liber
ties. The Conqueror, though he had pledged to
rule the people by the laws previously governing
them, later became very despotic, his word being en
forced as supreme law. StiU protecting the church
from the encroachments of the pope he aided that
organization as best he could. His separation of
the clerical courts from the secular ones led to a
vast amount of confiict, for it gave the clergy op
portunities of condoning vice and crime among them
selves. In the reign of William Rufus no constitu
tional progress was possible, since he is described as
"unrestrained by religious principle or policy, a
foul Incarnation of selfishness, an enemy of God and

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 151
man giving to England and Christendom an Incarna
tion of absolutism." He enslaved and plundered
the church.
To the next king, Henry First, is ascribed the
honor of granting the earliest charter of rights
given to the English people. It sought to mitigate
the absolutism of William Rufus and to do justice
to all classes. He promised not to retain the vacant
benefices or to farm them out. The king's court was
to be called three times a year to render justice to
all. He revived and registered old laws and the
office of chancellor was made for the king's chaplains.
To the church he granted the right of chapters to
elect their heads, the elections to be held In the
king's court. He granted by license only appellate
and legislative power to the pope, this action being
made the ground of the appeal of centuries by the
English in their resistance to papal impositions.
Stephen's scramble for the throne was such that
his accession was counted a usurpation and enabled
the prelates and nobles to secure a renewal of
Henry's charter with additions. Simony was for
bidden, laws of the Confessor relating to property
and dignities were revived, cases of accusation
against clerics were left with their bishops, and he
let alone testamentary disposition of the clergy and
the administration of vacant churches. Prelates
had castles to protect themselves like the barons,
for the feudal system was in full play. Stephen's
arbitrary ways provoked civil war. In the struggle
between Stephen and Matilda, the prelacy came to
the front, and in deposing Stephen, and again

162 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Matilda, made a precedent according to which Ed
ward Second and Richard Second and James First
were also deposed. The synods meeting from time
to time were insistent that good government of the
land should be exercised and that the Charter
should be observed. The jury system existent be
fore in embryo came into definite use and form dur
ing this time. The mental and poHtical ferment led
men to write on government matters, Glanville pro
ducing a treatise on law and FItz-Neal one on fi
nance, the first of importance produced in England.
When John came to the throne by election, in
1199, the archbishop claimed it was an act of the
nation after the presence of the Holy Spirit had
been invoked. Probably the provisions of the
Magna Carta relating to the church helped it more
politically than in the direct work of the religious
life, but the two are so blended as to make separa
tion impossible. The first clause granted the free
dom of the church in the election to bishoprics, while
the archbishop, bishops and abbots were to be called
with lay nobles to Parliament by royal writs. In
the affair of the Charter most of the clergy acted
with the barons, Langton, though in attendance
upon the king, largely inspiring the leading men in
the movement. The conduct of the clergy in direct
ing church affairs, their courts, councils, writs, were
the models after which the civil procedure was often
patterned. Their representation in councils must
have shown the way for civil representation later
in Parliament, and the election to office In the chap
ters doubtless directed civil elections.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 163
The constitutional relations to the religious life
were in this period marked by three great statutes.
Mortmain, Provisors, and Premunire. The first of
these, Mortmain, literally "dead hand," had its
origin in Magna Carta. A clause in that document
forbade any one to give his property to a religious
house, and then, taking it back, hold It under the
protective provisions of that house. It can be seen
that these religious houses being perpetual corpora
tions could hold property forever unproductive for
national defense and other burdens, since most of
the religious houses had special exemption from such
burdens by papal favors and by other means. This
statute of Edward First was really a broader re
statement of an older one. By It land transferred
without royal license was forfeited. It designed to
stop the vast accumulation of lands by the religious
bodies which were absorbing them rapidly. A hun
dred years later it was interpreted as forbidding the
transference of land to guilds and fraternities that
also held property In perpetuity. This statute was,
however, by the ingenuity of lawyers, often evaded
by the clergy.
The statute of Provisors, passed In 1351 under
Edward Third, was the culmination of a series of
attempts to get rid of papal interference in the elec
tion of bishops. The Parliament of CarHsle, in
1307, had stated in a petition of earls, barons and
commons, that the church founded by Englishmen
in the past that they might learn the faith, and that
provision might be made for prayers, alms and hos
pitality, had seen these foundations by recent action

154 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
of the pope thrown Into alien hands. By the statute
of Provisors, elections to benefices and dignities
were to be free, persons accepting papal promotions
were to be arrested, and some other similar provi
sions were included. The next year purchasers of
papal provisions were declared outlaws, and later
still penalty was increased to forfeiture and banish
ment. While these laws were now and then evaded
by various means, in all the struggle against papal
interference and assumptions they aided the patriot.
Again the Parliament in 1401 demanded their execu
tion. Two years after Provisors in 1363, the third of
those great statutes, Premunire, was enacted. It
took its name from the first word of the writ issued
in the Latin language. Owing to the presumptions
of the papacy, the relations with Rome had become
very strained and a deep irritation was consequent
in England. By this statute any one suing in
foreign courts for things cognizable in the king's
court forfeited his property, became liable to im
prisonment and was outlawed. If one would not
obey the summons against use of foreign courts he
was to answer for contempt. The real aim was to
stop the appeal to or use of papal courts, a way
that had become prevalent and most distressing.
A few years later, an additional statute definitely
named the papal courts and later still imposed for
feiture of goods for obtaining bulls or other orders
from Rome.
There was danger that the increase of bishops'
sees which put, for every new one, another cleric

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 155
into Parliament would give the cleric element pre
ponderance in that body and by king and laity such
increase was jealously watched. But the monaste
ries were so declining that the abbots were falling
lower in influence both In Parliament and out of it.
The convocations changed little, meeting usually at
the same time as the Parliament, and sometimes at
the request of royalty voting money for the king's
needs. The legislative work of the church was lega-
tive, or diocesan, or provincial, according to the
rank of the one under whose jurisdiction the work
was done. Their meeting and acts were only by
royal permission. As legislation was mixed, clerics
for clerics, clerics for laity, laity for clerics,
jumbles must sometimes have occurred and it was
difficult to keep the dividing line distinct in its ad
ministration. By the end of this period there were
about ten thousand parishes, but several times as
many clerics of one order and another. In Parlia
ment sat two archbishops and eighteen bishops. As
time passed more of the lower classes by education
and merit were able to reach high places in the
church. Enactments were sought against such pos
sibility, but kingly power increasing, the monarchs
were more lenient towards the lowly and sought their
support. In the time of Henry Seventh, the final
form of parliamentary act was:
"The king to the honor of God and the Holy Church,
and for the common profit of the realm by advice and
authority of the lords' spiritual and temporal."

CHAPTER XVI
The English Reformation was no sudden conver
sion. Several great events in human progress pre
pared the way for its coming. Lollardry had never
ceased from WycHf's time, the Renaissance had aided
in awakening the human spirit, the invention of
printing had multiplied information and power, the
discovery of America and of a water way to India
had increased the knowledge of other lands, and all
united to broaden the human vision. Owing to these
impulses and also to others western Europe could
no longer submit to the repression and ignorance of
medievalism. This part of the world was now bound
to leave behind the assumptions of the Roman
hierarchy. The human spirit was struggling to be
come free as never before. That spirit began to feel
its rights, its boundless capacity, and soon would
brook no fetters. Had these forces been at the com
mand of the English people In WycHf's time it is
possible that the reform of the sixteenth century
would have come a hundred and fifty years sooner.
As the agitation started in Germany by Luther was
spreading rapidly over Europe, it stirred the slum
bering embers of Lollardry in England.
Both the people and the clergy were alert, the one
to obtain the new way and learn Its benefits, the
other to shield their order from its threatenings,
and to intensify the repression of heresy. In St.
Paul's, London, was a prison specially devoted to
156

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 157
these heretics, known as the Lollard's Tower. In
1519, several were burned at the stake, and one,
Richard Hunne, was found murdered in the bish
ops' prison or Lollard's Tower, and his body after
burial, like that of Wyclif, was dug up and burned.
The people at large to a considerable degree gave
welcome to the teachings of Luther, for many books
produced by the continental reformers were brought
to England by merchants and travelers passing the
narrow sea. These writings and their reception by
the people greatly exasperating the ecclesiastics,
men and women were burned at the stake for teach
ing their children In the English tongue the Lord's
Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and Apostles'
Creed. Wolsey ordered the bishops to gather all
the books of Luther and send them to him.
The Renascence came to England just as the fer
ment of religious matters was arising and was a
powerful agent in opening the way for the Reforma
tion. Dean Colet of St. Paul's, having been in Italy
for the study of the literature scattered westward
from Constantinople when In 1453 the Turks cap
tured that city, brought to England the new spirit,
though greatly modified from the pagan trend being
given it in Italy. He wanted all benefits arising
from the new learlng possible to come to Christian
ity, and began planning and teaching for that noble
end. With men of a similar spirit, LInacre, Grocyn,
More, the German Erasmus and others, encouraged
by Warham and by the scholarly instincts of the
young king, Henry Eighth, the benefits which the
movement brought to England were shared with

158 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Colet as he labored. It alarmed the sleepy ecclesias
tics and when complaint was carried to the king and
he made a personal investigation into the results of
Colet's course, the pleased potentate instead of
silencing the inconoclastic Dean heartily cried,
"This man is the doctor for me." Erasmus and
others worked hard to bring the New Testament in
Greek to the hand of all. When this was out
with notes and paraphrases Warham sent copies to
all the prelates to read, the bishop of Winchester de
claring it to be worth ten commentaries. The spirit
of Erasmus in preparing this annotated New Testa
ment can be seen when he said,
"I long for the day when the husbandman shall sing
portions of them to himself as he follows the plough,
when the weaver shall hum them to the time of his
shuttle, when the traveler shall while away with their
stories the weariness of his journey."
The devotion of these great teachers to their high
obj ect, their bravery in face of cleric opposition that
knew no mercy to heresy, their noble purpose to
reach and enlighten the people in religious ways, en
title them to the profoundest gratitude and the high
est praise. The work of Erasmus and that of Colet
was reformatory as well- as Hterary. Colet could
sneer at the costly offerings he found piled on
Becket's tomb, and turn away in disgust when the
attendant monk offered the saint's shoe and rag to
kiss. Reform was getting into the very air.
These teachers took unyielding position against
war, the spirit of which was rampant in that age,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 159
and in which their young patron. King Henry,
greatly to their sorrow, was preparing to engage.
Colet, to carry forward the reforms he sought,
founded grammar schools, using his own fortune to
establish that of St. Paul's, London, and so eagerly
did other men of wealth follow the high purpose of
the Dean that schools were founded In various parts
of the realm, the beginning of systematic education
for the middle classes from whom have come since
that time most of England's great men. Over the
master's chair in Colet's school was an Image of the
child Jesus and the words, "Hear ye Him." Both
of the Universities, Cambridge and Oxford, were
deeply moved by the new spirit entering the realm.
In this time of mental ferment one literary work
of genius appeared, the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More.
In this ideal state all religions were tolerated. He
claimed what later comparative study of religions
has found, that all great religions have some truth
in their constituents, though in "Utopia" the Christian
religion was clearly at the head. In this ideal state
legislation was guided by a purpose to benefit all,
whether of high or low degree, the purpose one can
now see of Christianity In Its beneficent evangel to
man. A book written with these teachings, though
the course of the author in later official life was
sadly at variance with his preachments, could not
fail in spurring forward the human mind to find re
lief in protest and liberty.
Two allied inventions, paper making and the print
ing press, seem providentially opportune at this time
in helping humanity In its search for truth and free-

160 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
dom. General knowledge was increased with a
rapidity that was marvelous. All fields were en
tered. But no field was entered more eagerly than
that of religion. At first no Bible was printed in
the English, but the editions of the Greek Testa
ments of Erasmus and Colet were preparing the way
for Tyndale. Whatever books of controversy or
theological exposition were put forth on the con
tinent, were being rapidly translated into English,
and carried to England to awaken the dormant in
tellect. The rudely printed sheet, the short sen
tentious pamphlet which usually escaped the lynx
eyes of the ghostly censors were surreptitiously ob
tained and as secretly read. As the years passed
the king issued orders againt the importation of
these pestilent books, naming Tyndale's "New Testa
ment," "The Supplication of Beggars," Luther's
"Revelation of Antichrist," and others. Such books
getting into Oxford University made "gospellers" of
some of the inmates and even martyrs. In such new
found means of knowledge the people rejoiced. To
think for themselves, to read the burning thoughts of
others ahead of themselves in the search for truth,
were new sensations and they rejoiced like dis
coverers of an unknown continent. The man with
a book became a power.
Henry Eighth at the first was a devoted servant
of the papal church. In his coronation oath he
swore to keep and maintain the rights and liberties
of the Holy Church of old times granted by the
righteous kings of Christian England. Until the
death of his older brothers, Henry was being pre-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 161
pared to receive the archbishopric. His book
against Luther has been claimed to be the ablest
attempt made to defend papal orthodoxy. This
book dedicated to the pope won for Henry the title
"Defender of the Faith," a title proudly worn by
all English potentates since, though not always ap
plicable to the sovereigns since his time. Had there
not been the very mixed affair of his marriage to
his brother's widow and later his passion for the
pretty Anne Boleyn, there is no guessing what
course England would have taken.
Henry found in Wolsey a most able minister.
Though aiming at the papal dignity he still served
his prince with devotion and matchless ability. His
ecclesiastical presumptions and defense of clerical
prerogative propagated an insolent spirit among the
lower clergy. As papal legate Wolsey instituted
a legatine court, which taking cognizance of matters
of conscience and of reforming manners carried on
under its cover the grossest extortions and pious
plunder. Under his legatine authority he had con
trol of all the clergy, of the abbeys and cells, and
in all appeals from the lower ecclesiastical courts
superseded papal control in England. Wolsey ob
tained permission of the pope to suppress forty of
the degenerated monasteries using their proceeds in
the erection of his two colleges, one at Oxford, the
other at Ipswich, his native town. Before these
plans were consummated he was displaced, but the
foundation at Oxford was carried out by the king
under the name of Christ Church College.
The progress of thought and the advance toward

162 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
religious freedom at length brought forward the
necessity for a Bible in the vernacular. WycHf's had
not been printed. A better, more modern version
was needed. It must not be a simple transfer into
English of the Vulgate, but one produced from the
corrected Greek and Hebrew texts brought forward
by the scholarship of that time. As early as the
year 1524, George Stafford of Durham read at Cam
bridge public lectures out of the Bible. But the
universities were preparing a man, William Tyndale,
to put that book into good English, translated from
the annotated Greek and Hebrew editions, and to
scatter it over the land. He sat at the feet of Colet
and of Erasmus, an ardent student of the Bible, and
early became an adept In its language. Leaving the
university he soon determined to translate the New
Testament into English. He found a friend in
Humphrey Monmouth, a rich merchant, by whose
aid he went to Germany to begin the work of giving
a Bible in his own tongue. So sharp was the op
position even in England that Tyndale was a fugi
tive from one German city to another, his work being
interrupted from oversea though he was aided in it
by one John Fryth, another English refugee. The
printing of the New Testament was begun at
Cologne but was driven from there to Worms, where
in 1526 an octavo edition of ten thousand copies
was issued, and was being secretly carried to Eng
land by merchants and others and there sold at two
and three shillings each by a band of reformers
known as Christian Brethren. These New Testa
ments were ordered seized and burnt by the Privy

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 163
Council, men being put under sharp and dangerous
punishment for possessing and reading God's word.
John Fryth was busy carrying the New Testament
to inquirers in England, and he was also aiding
Tyndale in putting the Old Testament into English.
But this devoted worker was captured by the enemies
of reform and burnt at the stake in 1533. At Ant
werp, Tyndale labored at a revision of his New
Testament. As this hurried and imperfect edition
was brought into London by two merchants, Joy
and Constantine, the bishop, Tonstal, to head off
the use of it secretly, with the help of Packington,
bought up all the remainder of the edition and made
a great bonfire of them at Cheapslde. The money
from this sale went as Packington Intended it should,
to Tyndale who greatly needed it to put out a second
and better edition. As the influx of the hated New
Testament continued, Packington was questioned by
the Lord Chancellor and others of the Council who
told them that the largest purchaser was the Lord
Bishop which caused great merriment among the
less bigoted laymen.
After translating sections of the Old Testament,
Tyndale in 1535, as he was toiling on a still later
edition was kidnaped, probably by emissaries of the
English prelates that had hitherto failed to secure
him. He was hurried to a part of the country
governed by Charles Fifth, kept a year In vile pris
ons, and then In spite of all attempts of friends in
Antwerp and in England to save him, among whom
was Charles Cromwell, he was condemned for heresy,
first strangled and then burned at the stake. His

164 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
last words were, "Lord, open the King of England's
eyes!" Within a year so answered was this prayer
that Henry was giving his sanction to the issue of
a Bible slightly revised only from Tyndale's trans
lation. His herculean labors produced a translation
which has formed the basis of style for all versions
since. The English Bible was not to be suppressed.
Cranmer was in favor of its use by the people, soon
persuading Henry to order the issue of another ver
sion that should be free from the fearsome renderings
and notes of Tyndale. Soon the Matthews Bible
was given to England, the revision and change of
Tyndale's being mostly done by John Rogers who
did not dare to have the version come out bearing his
name, but gave that of Matthews. This edition was
objected to by the prelates, so one was projected
by Cranmer to be done in sections by the English
prelates themselves. For this purpose the arch
bishop distributed sections of the book to various
bishops to be rendered into acceptable English, all of
whom seem to have done the work assigned save
Stakesly of London, who, returning the assignment
untouched, sent as a reason an expression of the
extreme wing of the short-sighted and bigoted prel
ates of that epoch, "I marvel," he said, "what my
lord of Canterbury meaneth that thus abuseth the
people In giving them liberty to read the Scriptures,
which doth nothing else but infect them with heresy.
I will never be guilty of bringing the simple people
into error."
All this time Tyndale's translation revised by

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 166
Rogers, Coverdale and others, was secretly supplied
m response to the crying demand. As Cranmer's
edition was preparing the king had come to see its
worth and submitting Coverdale's revision to the
bishops asked them if there was any heresy in it,
and being told they saw none, he cried, "Then In
God's name let it go among the people." Permis
sion was given for it to be read in public and in
private, the first edition of 1537 being soon fol
lowed by others. But only a few years passed be
fore the prelatlcal party gained the ascendency In
the matter when the permission to own the Bible and
to read it was rescinded. The copies put into the
churches and worn out by the eager use of the
people were not replaced and the suppression con
tinued until the end of Henry's reign. While the
permission to read it had remained, passions had run
high for and against this grant. Old people now
first learned to read In order to taste this precious
book for themselves, buying copies at the compara
tively small cost at which they could be issued.
Children were taught letters that they might read
the Bible to their letterless parents and neighbors.
Other parents opposing this permission offered to
their children, beat them and sometimes threatened
their lives for learning to use the Bible.
As the merchants had transported the Bible from
Holland to England they did also to Scotland.
The strenuous rise of the reformation there, the deep
insight of the acute Scotch character into the truth,
and the radical change soon appearing, were largely
due to the Bible and the reforming literature sent

166 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
there. While these publications were under the ban
several families would gather in secret and in fear,
all listening to the gracious words as one read. In
1542 the Scot ParHament passed an act making it
lawful for any one to read the Bible in the vulgar
tongue, so that in the hands of the common people
and on the tables of the upper classes the precious
book was everywhere in evidence. After this time
the Scot press rapidly pushed the issuing of re
formed publications. There came a national awaken
ing. But to prepare the way for this liberty, Pat
rick Hamilton, of noble blood and broad culture,
was burned at the stake for bringing to light the
corruption and errors of the hierarchy, while Seaton,
the Confessor of James Fifth, for preaching similar
doctrines, was driven out of the kingdom. Not
lucky enough to escape were Forrest and Collet of
the Bennet monks who, for declaring Hamilton to
be a martyr, were themselves condemned to the
stake. The separation from Rome was hardly more than
an incident in the English Reformation. The polit
ical results were large, but the tide was so rising
among the people as to cause the submerging of
many beliefs and landmarks. Henry's question
about the validity of his marriage with his brother's
widow, entered on as a state policy, was consum
mated only after a dispensation of the pope. A
suggestion of Cranmer that the English church was
fully competent to deal with the affair, was a way
out of the complications of the hour quite consonant
with the deeper feeling of the nation with respect to

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 167
Rome. The condition of the religious life was most
distressing. The great saving truths of Chris
tianity were fatally obscured by a host of imperfect
beliefs, absurd practices and gross superstitions.
Salvation was not by faith in the atonement of
Christ but in the mass said or sung by monk or
priest. Penance and pilgrimage were depended
upon to free from sin and its consequences.
Crime became unspeakable. Punishment of the
most drastic character tried In vain to stem the tide
of robbery, foulness, murder. Some of the monks
and priests were lecherous, and some of the prelates
were said to make places for their own sons. The
monasteries became a byword of neglect and no new
foundations were being made. A weaker king than
Henry might have differently modified the inevitable
reform but his strong will and fearless action seem
to have been needed.
Wolsey as the pope's legate could not fully aid
the king in his purpose for a divorce. The action
which revived the power of Premunire became an
instrument for the remorseless king to destroy the
minister who had taught him the statecraft now
guiding him. By that sweeping law, the whole
clergy of England had been put under condemnation
through Wolsey's administration as papal legate,
exemption being bought from It by the Canterbury
province for a hundred thousand pounds, and for
the province of York for eighteen thousand pounds.
Wolsey, slow to press for the king's divorce, was
stripped from his pluralities and offices affording
him vast income, as he was also of his ostentatious

168 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
pageantry. In disgrace he was sent to administer
the province of York, but hated by the nobility at
court was arrested on the accusation of high trea
son, and died broken-hearted before the end of that
accusation could be inflicted.
The Commons had taken strong position against
pluralities and cleric exaction in case of probate
and mortuaries. The people were becoming ex
asperated at the continued exactions and severe
persecutions still kept up by the clerics. The body
of one William Tracy was ordered dug up and
burned because in his will he had not commended his
soul to the intercession of the saints. A lawyer of
the Middle Temple, William Bainham, having been
arrested for denying purgatory. Invocation of the
saints, extreme unction and auricular confession, re
canted and later recalling his recantation was by
order of Sir Thomas More whipped in the house of
Utopia's author, subjected to the rack and later sent
to the stake.
Both Convocation and Parliament voted in favor
of the king's supremacy. Most of the lower clergy
remained loyal to Rome in sentiment and in prac
tice of services. Especially in the north and west
they organized itineraries to preach up the pope's
power over that of potentates, and the inferiority
of princes to the clergy. Cranmer found in Hugh
Latimer an able helper whose preaching, eloquent
and fiery, was sharp against worshiping the Vir
gin, the saints, as well as against pilgrimages and
similar practices.
Appeals formerly made to the pope could now

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 169
formally be made to the king in Court of Chancery,
and prelates were curtailed in their courts of juris
diction, thus gathering most church affairs into
royal power. Two men prominent in the stirring
times were able to take the oath to the succession
but could not accept other debated questions. Sir
Thomas More and Bishop Fisher. Cranmer desired
allowance to be made them but the king's court was
not wiUing and after being held In the Tower both
were beheaded for treason. The Carthusian monks
of Charterhouse, London, were willing to accept the
succession but not the king's supremacy in church,
so three of their priors were burned at Tyburn.
Others of them thrown into pestilent prisons were
left to rot and die. Passions ran high. People
were easily led to accept wrong opinions or to follow
some absurd impostor and the priests at the con
fessional were Infusing a spirit of opposition to the
reform into the minds of their parishioners,

CHAPTER XVII
The monasteries were doomed by a policy like
that of Henry. Long before this date, as far back
as 1489, the pope, having heard of the evils existing
in the English monasteries, gave the archbishop of
Canterbury directions to correct and reform as was
found necessary. The abbot of the great monastery
of St. Albans, near London, was addressed by that
prelate in a letter yet extant in which a revolting
list of accusations is recited against him and his
house. Some of these were of "simony, usury, of
dilapidation, and of waste of goods," further the re
laxation of religious practices, hospitality and alms,
with gross and uncommon chastity, the priory and
prioress being accused of vices and crimes too
blackening to be named. The property was alien
ated, precious plate and jewels sold and forests cut
down. If a few of the monasteries had maintained
their primitive purposes these few had their fair
name smirched by the filth of the mass. Wolsey had
obtained permission of the pope and of the king to
dissolve forty of them. The king suppressed the
Observants at Greenwich, Canterbury, Richmond
and at other places, filling their establishments with
Augustine friars, they being mercifully spared the
frightful fate of the Carthusians.
In 1536, It was decided that all the monasteries
with less income than two hundred pounds a year
170

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 171
should be dissolved, the revenues from them put to
public use for building fortifications, endowing new
dioceses and for other purposes. A commission with
Thomas Cromwell at its head was sent out on a
visitation, their scrutiny including even the highest
prelates. In this visitation of Cromwell's commis
sion articles to the number of eighty-six were to be
put as questions in determining what should be done,
and another set to be propounded to the nunneries
was prepared. From some fragments of this report
preserved, the original document having been lost,
possibly destroyed in Mary's reign with other in
criminating documents known to have gone that way,
most frightful conditions existed. Erasmus, an un
prejudiced observer, said that "Whereas before learn
ing was mostly in the monasteries now the monks
give themselves up to the belly, luxury and money."
Hume says that money left for pious purposes was
squandered by the monks in taverns, gambling houses
and In worse places still.
It is said that three hundred seventy-six of the
smaller houses were dissolved after this visitation.
Since many of the inmates would come to penury,
Latimer in vain advised that two or three houses be
left in each diocese to save from such suffering.
Monks less than twenty-four years of age were set
at liberty, many of them glad to be free from their
vows taken at an age too tender to know their
significance, while others above that age were given
the choice of going free or finding a retreat in some
larger monastery not yet suppressed. Such of these
as chose to go into the world were given a suit of

172 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
clothes and forty shillings; to the nuns were given
a gown and freedom.
The disclosures of this unspeakable corruption
joined with a taste of such riches as the suppression
of the smaller houses afforded the needy king and
his avaricious courtiers, led most surely to the next
step in the drama. The larger, richer monasteries
must also go. Further, many people had come to
believe that some of the specified objects of their
foundation had no real existence, for instance, pur
gatory being relegated to limbo made prayers for
the dead meaningless. It was urged that if they
were to be dissolved the property should revert to
the heirs of the founders, but this use of the prop
erty would not be in accord with the purpose of the
king and of his rapacious court. They coveted the
fertile land and rich treasures garnered through gen
erations, to sustain new titles of nobility. Many of
the present aristocracy date their title and estates
from this movement, as a few others reach back to
the time of the Conqueror.
The conduct of the dissolution and care of the
property were committed to a specially ordered
body called the Court of Augmentations. Since
many of the larger monasteries, as great manors,
had furnished soldiers like other important fiefs, the
number of soldiers that could be called for was de
pleted. Many of the heads of these institutions had
sat in the upper house of Parliament, these to the
number of twenty-eight, it is said, being removed,
the ecclesiastical preponderance of that house per
ished. Whatever good was in those houses was

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 173
brushed aside with their suppression. Their val
uable manuscripts were destroyed, scattered and
burnt, thus causing Irreparable loss. The beautiful
stained windows were smashed, the old bells of
matchless tones were melted down, libraries sold to
soap-makers for heating their vats, the mendicants
at the gates waiting for alms were driven thence with
the beadle's whip. In all It Is said there were sup
pressed six hundred forty-five monasteries, ninety
colleges were demolished, two thousand three hun
dred seventy-four free chapels and chantries, and
ten hospitals, all yielding a revenue of one hundred
thirty-five thousand, five hundred twenty-two pounds,
eighteen shillings, six pence. Besides this cash in
come there was an immense amount of plate, cattle,
timber, and other things sold, but the rates were put
so low that the result of these sales could not have
been more than one-twentieth of their real value.
Many of the prelates, even the archbishop, were
compelled by the same imperious course to give up
their chapter lands, which were turned over to lay
men. It was a high carnival of legitimatized robbery.
In 1639 the king, owing to the outcry against the
total suppression of the monasteries, reinstated
thirty-one, sixteen of them nunneries. When the
report of the visitation was read in the House of
Commons there arose an indignant, spontaneous cry,
"Shame, Shame ! Put them down !" The promise of
Henry to establish bishoprics, preachers, readers,
schools, students, and scholars was not carried out
by him, but was in part in the following reign.

174 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Two great evils, at least, arose in the course of
suppression. The north and west were strenuous
for the old faith. The outcry of the monks and
other clerics against losing the monasteries found
response with the sturdy beggars and with very
many of the common people, thus a spirit of insur
rection was aroused. It is probable that the seculars
helped the monks and regulars to inflame the fears
and resentment of their people. The malcontents
set up the monasteries again, putting monks back
Into them, and Insisted that the Princess Mary
should have the right of succession, and that Luther-
anlsm should be crushed. The northern clergy,
meeting at Pomfort, sent their demands to Henry.
They asked that heresy be punished under the laws
of Henry Fourth, that is, with burning and without
mercy, that holy days be observed as in times past.
They refused to acknowledge the king's headship in
the church, rejected his claim to tenths, objected to
the use for temporal purposes of the property once
dedicated to spiritual objects, considered dispensa
tions to be good If granted by the pope, desiring to
recognize him as before, and deemed the correction
of deadly sins to belong to the clergy only. It was
really a Catholic movement in the interests of that
party. Henry, at the time, on their dispersion
granted a general pardon but later apprehended a
large number, executing many of them, among whom
were six abbots, one prior, five priests and several
monks. Another trouble that came with the suppression
of the monasteries was a great increase of vagabond-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 176
age and crime among the lowly. Many of them de
pendent upon the monasteries had learned no trade
or industry, had been fed with alms doled out at the
gates or had been employed by the houses in some
menial labor. In the early history of the monastic
system these dependents had greatly aided the
brothers in reducing wild land morasses and bogs to
productive farms. The great embankments of the
lower Thames were doubtless the work of the mon
asteries. These men and women by the ten thou
sand were now turned loose helplessly to drift.
Crime and vice were certain to follow. The au
thorities in those ages knew of no other way to deal
with these unfortunate people than to use bloody
severity. Gibbets would have a ghastly row of
twenty or fifty at a time. Foreign travelers were
shocked by the sight of so much thieving and mur
der, these not being lessened by the severe punish
ments inflicted. The steps thus far in the move
ment had partially resulted in lawlessness while
crime, alehouses and stews abounded, dice and cards
were the pastime of the masses, gross Ignorance and
low morals acted as a paralysis on the nation.
The king's supremacy was declared by act of
ParHament in 1534, and steps were taken at once to
accustom people to It. St. Paul's, London, was
the court sanctuary, the central point of
political preaching. The king ordered the preacher
at this place to declare that the bishop of
Rome now had no authority in England, what
he had exercised there before had been usurpa
tion. Henry also directed that householders

176 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
should teach their children and servants this claim
and that the nobility should widely talk the same
teachings. However, Parliament and the people
were not ready to give the king as unlimited power
as the papal authorities had claimed. By the means
used Henry purposed to release the people and the
royal prerogatives from the thralldom of the cen
turies. Of course Rome could not complacently accept
this culmination of English affairs. England
yielded too much prestige to papal claims, and
yielded too much treasure to be lost. Intrigue was
to be added to open correspondence, agents to fol
low legates, Jesuits to bring their incomparable sub-
tilty to other means for holding the island to the
old faith. It was allowed to leak out that a bull
of excommunication which had cowed former kings
of England was prepared by the pope, though with
held for the time being. This was in 1636. This
weapon had ceased to dethrone kings or to bring na
tions to their knees. Its preparation did not deter
Henry from his course nor frighten Cranmer or
Cromwell. Under the guidance of these men the
reform went steadily if slowly forward. They had
to face opposition among the prelates and in the
council. Both were hotly hated, Cromwell for not
coming of aristocratic blood, Cranmer for his per
sistent Protestantism. Still the English church was
insistent, as was Henry, for the acceptance of
Catholic tenets. To deny the real presence would
send the heretics to the stake, while with them would
go to the scaffold the Catholics who denied the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 177
king's supremacy. The religious consciousness was
fettered both ways, the stout English character
being able to furnish martyrs to each belief. The
foundation stones of religious liberty for the Anglo-
Saxons were being cemented with blood.
The great leaders of the movement, Cranmer from
his place as archbishop of Canterbury and Crom
well from his place as vicar-general of the kingdom,
sought to substitute a better religious faith for the
old one. The new forces of the printing press were
made to serve. A primer of devotion was issued in
1636, probably by royal impulse, and since the
Bible had been denied to people lower than the rank
of gentleman, the primer was doubtless designed for
the lower classes. The Creed, the Lord's Prayer,
Ten Commandments, and other portions of Scripture
were commended and had explanatory notes, with
prayers, psalms and the litany. A second edition
was soon demanded, but after Cromwell's fall It was
recalled. Still for years books and pamphlets of
many kinds had been coming in piles from the con
tinent. Tyndale's version of the Bible had been
doing its beneficent work of enlightenment, in vain
were all efforts of the prelates and of royalty to stop
this invasion. The people would read. Learning
letters made them rejoice in a new-found power. In
it was promise of more rights and freedom. At a
meeting of the Convocation in 1536 a list of fifty-
nine errors and abuses said to be growing prevalent
was sent from the Lower House to the Upper One,
showing the ferment and change going on. Of these
so-called errors one was that the church consisted

178 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
only of good people, others, that ceremonies not war
ranted by Scripture were of human invention and so
could be laid aside, that priests could marry, that
it was as lawful to eat meat on Good Friday as on
any other day, that auricular confession, absolution,
were neither necessary nor beneficial, that no rever
ence ought to be paid to the images of the saints,
that confession to God was sufficient for anybody,
that the Blessed Virgin was no better than any other
woman and could not prevail with our Savior any
more than any person of her sex, that there was no
purgatory, that going on pilgrimages, giving alms,
fasting, need not be used.
Such questions debated In private, discussed in
print and combated by the Convocation, were the
alphabet of Protestant freedom. The Lower House
complained also that some books examined by the
Convocation and found full of heresy and heterodoxy
were not expressly condemned by the bishops, being
permitted to remain In the hands of the unlearned
people, thus furnishing the vulgar with arguments to
dispute against the Church. It was doubtless a shot
at Cranmer, Latimer and Saxton. Over against
this arraignment for heresy the friends of reform
in the upper house of Convocation, which seems to
have been about evenly divided for reform and
against it, subscribed a list of articles looking to
ward a better religious life, the Scriptures as a rule
of faith being commended, also the earlier creeds,
as the Apostles', Nicene, Athanasius, yet demanding
uniformity of beliefs and observances. They
claimed that remission of sins was obtained by bap-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 179
tism to which for salvation infants must be brought.
Penance to them was a sacrament, transubstantia
tlon allowed to be true, images might remain in the
churches but were not to be worshiped, nor saints,
though they were to be honored, to put men in mind
of spiritual things which they signified. So sprin
kling of holy water, using ashes on Ash Wednesday,
creeping to the cross on Good Friday and certain
other ceremonies were not to be cast away. While
mostly giving up purgatory, they denied the pope's
power to set free from It, looking askance also upon
prayers and alms for the dead. To this list of ar
ticles forty prelates of the upper house and fifty
members of the lower house subscribed. And still
for heresy the stake held its burning victims.
Along with other imperfect or false notions prev
alent a great mass of superstitions was retained.
For the sake of attracting devotees to a shrine or
abbey or hermitage, to be enriched by offerings from
those making the pilgrimage, a report would be scat
tered among the people that diseases could be cured,
projects could be put forward, sins remitted, or a
journey be carried to a favorable end through the
intercession of the saint whose shrine was thus hon
ored or by the prayers of the attendant monks. It
was similar to the old worship at wishing wells and
trust in amulets. Indeed at that time and later,
holy wells were invoked. Apparitions were con
stantly appearing and evil spirits were frequent at
tendants. At this time a deep belief in witchcraft
was also present, which continued through the suc
ceeding reigns, the laws harrying to death those ac-

180 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
cused of this foUy. The hanging of witches in
America was only a transfer of the laws and be
liefs from the mother country.
In 1537, there came out under parliamentary or
ders, a book designed to direct the whole clergy
in their teaching the people and in their own con
duct. As remission of sins and salvation were to
be found only in the pale of the CathoHc church,
damnatory sentence was pronounced upon all
heathens, Jews and Infidels. The words of absolu
tion at confession, the book claimed, ought to be
depended upon as though they were declared from
the sky and spoken by God himself. Stress too
great, the book said, was laid upon unimportant
ceremonies, some people thinking it a greater sin to
eat an egg on Friday than to commit theft or for
nication. Two years later another statement of the nation's
beliefs and observances was thrown out with royal
sanction, since called "The Bloody Six Articles."
Being the product of Roman predominancy in
Council and Convocation, really a papal reaction,
it was in some points antagonistic to previous dec
larations. The real presence was insisted upon, com
munion in but one kind declared, no marriage of
priests allowed, private masses and auricular con
fession continued. For heresy the punishments were
confiscation of goods and the penalty of felony.
But those accused under these articles could be
tried by jury, a most beneficial escape from the nar
rowness of the ecclesiastical courts.
The Bible in EngHsh was suppressed. Cranmer

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 181
strongly dissented from these backward movements.
Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, and Saxton of Sal
isbury resigned their sees and having spoken against
these articles were thrown Into prison as were hun
dreds of others throughout the kingdom, till Henry,
at the remonstrance of Cranmer, who still held the
royal confidence, and of Cromwell, set them free.
But under these articles many were sent to the stake,
though Cromwell saved all he could. In one day
four Dutch Anabaptists, three of them women, after
publicly bearing fagots to St. Paul's, were burned
at Smithfield. Cromwell who had so faithfully
served the king, now being In the monarch's way,
was cried to a traitor's death by a papal faction.
Again permission was obtained for all to read the
Bible, the king being In favor of this opportunity.
Bonner, bishop of London, was so liberal that he
ordered his clergy to read at least a chapter a day
in the New Testament, the pastors to compose their
own sermons, and that six Bibles should be set up
for public reading In St. Paul's. The change going
on was marked by the setting forth of another book
of doctrine in 1543, the king himself writing the
preface. It was named "A Necessary Doctrine and
Erudition for the Christian Man." Actually it was
a revised, changed edition of the institutions put
forth in 1537. The book taught free will and that
justification was the making men righteous before
God, reconciled, and heirs of eternal life. Prayers
were to be put up in the English so the people would
know what they were saying. In the baptism of
infants, the cross was to be signed on the forehead

182 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
and elsewhere, salt was to be put into the mouth,
the nostrils and ears to be touched with spittle, the
breast anointed with holy oil, while the parents
should pledge their own belief and promise to teach
it to the child. Singing and the organ were to be
used to incite the people to devotion, the various
parts of the priest's apparel were to signify some
mystic meaning. Sundays were to be used in divine
service, various holy days were commendable and
to be observed. In this advance, provision was also
made for teaching the people over all the kingdom
by means of itinerating preachers, the diffusion of
homilies, sermons and explanations. Plays, farces,
and interludes burlesquing the monks were to cease.
This book Cranmer signed though dissatisfied with
the slow progress of the Reformation.

CHAPTER XVIII
The relation of England to the papacy during the
later years of Henry's reign presents a curious
spectacle. Under certain conditions the pope had
promised Henry a divorce from Catherine. At
tempts at different times to reconcile the papacy to
the king had failed. The papal bull, held in secret
for some time, was in 1538 thrown out against the
strenuous king. The king was granted ninety days
to appear at Rome in person, or by proxy, to an
swer for his course and in case of failure the king
dom was to be put under interdict, Henry was to be
declared infamous, and the issue of Anne Boleyn
illegitima,te. Men were to have no dealings with
him, all the clergy were commanded to go out of the
kingdom within five days except enough to baptize
infants and give the sacrament to the dying, all
noblemen were charged to rise In arms against him.
If other kingdoms traded or had Intercourse with
him they were also to be put under interdict, and
were called to make war upon him and break all
treaties with him. Such fulminations were little
dreaded any longer In England, for all the bishops
signed a declaration against these papal pretentions,
declaring war on papal jurisdiction. The con
tinental powers were heedless of the Injunctions to
them of the pope. There was no progress to
Canossa for this Henry, no waiting barefoot in the
snow for absolution. 183

184 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Some efforts were made by the German Protes
tant princes and by leaders in England to com
bine the reformers of both countries into a defen
sive body to resist in arms the Romish forces sent
against them. But Henry, always shy of the Lu
therans, temporized because Charles Fifth was uncle
to Catherine. As time passed Henry's shifting
course caused distrust among the sturdy Germans,
the reform in England not proceeding fast enough
to suit them. Melanchthon had joined his schol
arly arguments in vain with those sent by the Ger
man princes.
Through these changing times a constant attri
tion took place between the legal proceedings of
the ecclesiastical courts and of the temporal jurisdic
tion. In 1530 the Commons complained to the king
that the clergy made laws In conflict with the con
stitution, and the king, finding it true, extorted from
them a promise to keep their oath to him. They
refused in the Convocation to abrogate any of the
old canon laws, yet promised to make no new ones
contrary to the constitution. Of course the clergy
were sharply opposed to such curtailment of their
prerogatives but in vain. An amazing privilege of
the ecclesiastics, termed benefits of clergy, had been
existent through generations past and now steps
were taken to change It so that all subjects would
be placed under one law. By that custom or law
one convicted of a crime could, by proving himself
a cleric, be saved from punishment by the temporal
powers. To correct such abuses was a study of
statesmen. In Elizabeth's reign, offenders were not

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 186
turned over to the church courts but branded on
the cheek and sent away.
In Scotland a most remarkable preacher came to
the front, John Knox, who about 1642 professed
himself a Protestant. He was of the middle class,
thoroughly educated in the University of Glasgow
where later he taught. Soon after professing
Protestantism he began preaching and in some of
the turbulence of the times was captured by the
French at the Castle of St. Andrews, and while serv
ing at an oar in their galleys encouraged the re
formers in Scotland with his pen. In 1549 Knox
was set at liberty, and spent some years In England
and on the continent previous to his herculean labors
for the Reformation in Scotland. After the death
of James, the queen regent, an ardent Catholic, per
sistently stood in the path of reform, putting in her
claim, Hke Henry Eighth, of royal prerogative, but
among her subjects an opinion was arising that if
a majority of the people desired a change they could
enter upon It themselves. They were asking for
church services In the vernacular, and for reform in
the lives of the prelates. But as in England, the
way to these and other reforms was a way of blood.
A decrepit old priest, Walter Mill, quit mass and
began preaching against that, also against the wor
ship of Images and the corporal presence, the seven
sacraments and pilgrimages, claiming the priests
had a right to marry, condemning the office of bishop,
and went holding meetings In private houses.
The archbishop of St. Andrews had him brought to
trial where he ably defended his work, but was or-

186 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
dered to be burnt. No executioner could be found
to light the fire till a servant of the archbishop con
sented to serve as such, the archbishop furnishing
cords from his pavilion to bind the poor old cripple.
Petitions for reform to the queen regent receiving
no response, a group of the nobUity entered Into an
agreement that things should be so far reformed that
the Book of Common Prayer used In England should
be used in Scotland and that meetings might be held
in private houses. A Council of the clergy moved
toward certain reforms, the Parliament, being In the
hands of the Protestants, demanded that the papal
religion be discarded, and that the ecclesiastical
revenues of the old system be used to support the
ministry of the new system. But there was to be
no toleration, since attendance upon mass was, for
the first time to be forfeit of goods with corporal
punishment, for the second offense, banishment, and
for the third, death. A plan of education that put
a school in every parish was formulated, in which
were taught religion, grammar and Latin, plans
which have been practically carried out to the pres
ent. Mobs clamored for reform and the Protestant
clergy with the nobles appealed to arms to protect
themselves in their faith. The monasteries and clois
ters were by act of Parliament suppressed, but the
hot-hearted people preceded the committee and in
various ways demolished these hotbeds of corruption.
And not stopping with these houses, the mob tore
down the churches, deeming any building with a
steeple a place of idolatry, filching the plate, bells

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 187
and other valuables, and selling them at the public
market. In one of the appeals to arms, the dis
solute Mary was taken prisoner by the nobles, but
escaping, made her way to English territory and put
herself under Elizabeth's protection. The Jesuit
plans and plots thickened about the exiled queen
until Elizabeth, to protect her crown and kingdom,
allowed Mary's trial and execution.
As in England, the church properties conveyed
to the crown were largely caught up by the courtiers
so that the crown lost much of its income. During
the minority of the young James, the government
was carried on by a regency of the powerful nobles,
the prince evincing a purpose to rid the country of
Jesuits, seminaries and priests, and desiring the
people to conform to one rule of church life. As he
assumed control of royal affairs in the last decade of
the century, he fretted deeply like Elizabeth under
the stout purposes of the ultra reformers.
In Ireland, the situation was very unsettled. The
mass of the Irish people were faithful to the CathoHc
service while the English of the Pale, the strip of
country occupied by them, acknowledged In their
local ParHament the royal supremacy and the sep
aration from Rome. When the great wealth taken
from the knights of St. John was passed into the
royal exchequer, it was ordered, as a way to put
some of it into use, that vicarages should be built for
every parish in Ireland. The fiery Irish people
would hardly follow the reform doctrines and prac
tices held by their oppressors. Indeed, among the
real Irish people the Reformation never made much

188 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
progress. At those times as ever since they have
continued true, loyal children of the pope.
In 1547 Henry Eighth saw that death was crowd
ing nigh him. In Henry's last address to his ParHa
ment, he complained of the bitter dissentlons rife,
saying the Scriptures had been given to the nation
to inform the conscience, to teach families and chil
dren and not to cause disputes. He did not see that
out of this chaos of controversy were emerging prog
ress and liberty. Henry had done three great things
for England, separated the nation from the papacy,
dissolved the monasteries, and given the Bible to the
people. These events during his long reign, high
handed, tyrannical though he was in many respects,
were of vast worth to England. By some admirers
he has been called "The Father of His Country." If
the people feared him they loved him. Even the
ultra reformers showed respect and affection for him.
His country was ever foremost in his purposes.
Wolsey and Cromwell, though he doomed them to un
merited death, were able statesmen whose great abil
ities were at the service of the monarch, and history,
while It will execrate his treatment of them, can re
joice that he had command of their wider vision.
Cranmer, of less virile nature than either of those
men, was so trusted by the king that his influence for
reform and the quieter virtues of Christianity was
measureless.

CHAPTER XIX
Edward Sixth, the boy king, came to the
crown in 1547. By the will of Henry Eighth the
government during Edward's minority was com
mitted to a commission of sixteen about evenly
divided between Catholics and Protestants. The
king's maternal uncle, the Earl of Hertford,
held first place in this commission, and being
a reformer, exerted his commanding influence
upon the new way. Edward, now nine years of age,
though weak In body was of most precocious mind.
He was thoroughly taught the principles of Protest
antism. The late king had taken great care that not
only Edward, but also Mary and Elizabeth, should
be given the best instruction possible to obtain.
Hertford desired with Cranmer from his influential
place as Archbishop of Canterbury to push the
Reformation with rapid advances, but the nation was
hardly prepared to follow. Possibly one-half or
more of the people were like a part of the commission,
yet strongly of Catholic practice. Lord Wroietsley,
the Lord Chancellor, became in the Council and in the
nation at large a leader of this section.
The Lord Protector, on assuming power had been
devout in prayer, being so trusted by the people as
to be called "The Good Duke." In attempting to
make a treaty with Scotland to Include a marriage
between the Scot Princess Mary, and Edward, he
pointed out the un-Chrlstian spirit in the antagonism
189

190 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
between the two nations, which could now be allayed
by this marriage, and with God for defense they could
thus united defy all foreign attacks. The state
papers of this period were marked by a devout spirit
while prominent commissioners on important missions
prayed God to go with them. On the young king's
coronation three swords were carried before him to
represent the three kingdoms of his domain, England,
France and Ireland, and he called for the fourth one,
the Bible, which he said was the sword of the Spirit.
The Commission set aside Henry's request for the
repose of his soul, six hundred pounds a year con
ferred upon certain clerics of St. George's chapel to
say masses and to do four solemn abits a year.
They ordered also the omission of the religious ob
servance since that body did not believe in the efficacy
of such services. Refugees oversea receiving inspira
tion from the continental reformers urged more rapid
progress toward radical reform. On the other hand
the monks scattered from the suppressed monasteries
were a sore means of discontent among those with
whom they had not lost influence. In this way holding
back the advance that otherwise could have been
made, as well as keeping many ready for the Cath
oHc reaction promised to be brought in by Mary.
The Commission had the laws about heresy and about
the Lollards repealed, as also the Bloody Six Articles.
For the time auricular confession was left indifferent,
a thing characterized by Hume as "the most powerful
engine that was ever contrived for degrading the laity
and giving their spiritual guardians ascendency over
them."

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 191
At this time the object of religion was well stated:
"It is chiefly designed for perfecting the nature of
man, for improving his faculties, governing his ac
tions and securing the peace of every man's con
science, and of the societies of mankind in common."
Some homilies of which Cranmer was mostly the
author were given the parish ministers designed to
furnish them the facts and give upward impulse, for
the progress of truth was greatly hindered by ig
norant and incompetent preachers. These homilies
taught the people the importance of using the Scrip
tures, the misery caused by sin, that salvation was by
Christ through true and living faith, the place of
good works was stated, the people were warned
against swearing, perjury, apostasy, foulness, and
fear of death, and were taught obedience to laws and
magistrates. Images calling for pilgrimages were
to be taken down, in no case being allowed except to
refresh the memory. The Bible and the paraphrases
of Erasmus were to be put into the churches. All
fixtures of feigned miracles were to be destroyed.
Two significant restrictions were named, that clerics
should not frequent ale houses, and that people at
enmity with their neighbors should not come to the
communion. Chantry priests were to become school
masters, teaching the young to read and write. Such
colleges and chantries as had been spared by Henry
were granted by Parliament to Edward.
As in the preceding reign passions ran high.
Many people became iconoclastic, in mobs clearing
the churches of images and other things they deemed
idolatrous. Vehement preachers like Doctor John

192 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Harley of Magdalene College, Oxford, declared
against the pope and the old beliefs. Harley being
examined by the college authorities was sent to Lon
don as a heretic but was there privately dismissed.
In the second year of the king's reign, the images not
having been cleared from aU the churches, the Pro
tector ordered them all down and their adornments
turned over to the king's use. At the same time the
Catholics were active, Gardiner defending the use of
images and of holy water against which Ridley had
been preaching. Two books, one claiming Anne
Askew's death to be martyrdom, the other on
Luther's death, were offensive to the Catholics and
Gardiner also appealed against them. This prelate
on the visitation being sent to him, refused compli
ance, and being warned wrote In his defense that he
had observed the constitution, the book "Erudition,"
the acts of Parliament, the homilies and injunction
of the visitors, yet he was put into the fleet. The
bishop of London, also being incarcerated for non
compliance, took down on his release the images of
Jesus, Mary, John and Paul from all the churches
of the metropolis.
As under Henry, Cambridge University continued
to lead in the spirit of enlightenment and reform, ed
ucating and sending out men who by their teachings
and martyrdom were to sustain the Reformation in
England and beyond. Learned people steadily ac
cepting the reformed views were becoming leaders in
the national progress. Cranmer finding that some
highly educated Germans were being persecuted in
their own country invited them to England and the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 193
valuable help they rendered was very great. Martin
Bucer was given the chair of divinity at Cambridge,
Peter Martyr, a Florentine, the same at Oxford, and
Paulus Fagius, the chair of Hebrew at Cambridge.
John Alasco, a Polish nobleman of reformed views,
also made welcome, soon became pastor of a congre
gation of refugees in London.
Since much diversity of service had grown up, and
only uniformity was desired, toleration not even
being dreamed of, a book of liturgy was ordered to
be used in all the churches. This prepared with
great care, was sent out in January, 1548, really
being the first book of Common Prayer. It was ar
ranged for the Psalms to be said in their order, the
lessons were to be copied from the English Bible,
making them simple and easy of comprehension.
Some objections being made to this book, a revised
edition was sent out four years later, mostly in the
form it has persisted in to the present. Possibly
next to the Bible the Book of Common Prayer has
had most to do in shaping the uses and customs con
nected with the religious life of the Anglo-Saxon
race. In this revised edition confession and absolu
tion were left out, as other steps were taken for re
form, but many rites and ceremonies remained. Lit
urgy connected with communion was simplified and
that sacrament was to be given in both kinds. In
baptism the anointing and exorcism were not re
quired, nor prayers for the dead in the burial service.
The doctrine of purgatory was discarded. An order
making the new liturgy obligatory upon all came out
from the court. The permission for the clergy to

194 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
marry was a most important step toward better
morals, the rector having the amenities of a home,
cared for by one interested in It, the natural joys
and impulses arising from family life coming to him,
while women as wives of clergymen were aided in the
Christian virtues.
Heated debate and acrimonious contention con
tinued during this period about the eucharist. The
CathoHc party was persistent for the real presence,
while a strong party of unbiased thinkers departed
far from the notion of transubstantiatlon. Ridley
headed a disputation before the royal Commission
contending for two points, first that transubstantia
tlon could not be proved from the Bible, or from the
Fathers a thousand years after Christ, second, that
at the communion there was no oblation or sacrifice
except by way of remembrance of Christ's death.
In the Book of Prayer in the first edition the form
ran: "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which
was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto
everlasting life." In the second edition it was
changed to this : "Take, eat this in remembrance
that Christ died for thee and feed on Him in thy
heart by faith with thanksgiving." In the revised
edition the wine was given with this formula:
"Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was
shed for thee, and be thankful."
A third group of beliefs and practices began to
take form In Edward's time which have persisted to
our own day, compelling a kind of triangular form
to the religious parties of England. This wing of
the religious life was not satisfied that the Anglican

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 196
church retained so many ceremonies of the medieval
church but rather sought simplicity of service and
doctrine. Because of their persistent appeals to the
Bible, and especially to the Gospels, they were
dubbed "Gospellers," and were the parents of present
non-conformity in England. They bore various
names and believed various doctrines. Kent seemed
a very hotbed of these dissidents, for in it were found
Anabaptists, who did not believe in Infant baptism
and would baptize such the second time. Pelagians,
FreewIUers, those believing children were not born
to original sin, others who thought It sin to play
games for money, while some gathered for worship on
other than holydays, and others still would not kneel
at communion. Unitarians were also in evidence,
prominent among these being Joan of Kent, who in
sisted that Jesus did not take any of the flesh of the
Virgin. Being arrested, tried, and condemned as a
heretic, she said that Anne Askew was burned for a
piece of bread and now she was to suffer the same
way for a piece of flesh. To the honor of the boy
king and to the infamy of the enlightened Cranmer it
must be told that the king tried to save Joan from
the sentence of burning at Smithfield, but under the
importunity of the archbishop, Edward in tears
finally signed the death warrant.
Nonconformity was also persistent with the
Princess Mary, who, a stout Catholic, refused alike to
use the Anglican service or to give up her own.
They tried intimidation, the young king tried per
sonal importunities, her chaplains were sent to
prison, but the stout Tudor nature could assert itself

196 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
in religious matters as well as in political ones. Rid
ley being sent to remonstrate with her desired to
preach to her, but she repeUed him. In other high
places the laws were not observed ; Bonner, bishop of
London, not fully using the liturgy, being caUed to
account and showing an insolent spirit, was deprived
of his bishopric and cast into prison, where he re
mained until the accession of Mary.
A commission of thirty-two, clerics and laity, hav
ing been appointed early in Edward's reign to draw
out a body of church laws from the mass of canonical
ones, finished their work in 1653, but this code, not
having received the royal signature, never became a
law. In this code one accused of heresy and In some
other cases could appeal from one court to another
up to the king, which was a most important step
toward protection of rights, for heresy still, Includ
ing blasphemy, could be pursued to death's punish
ment. Only two sacraments were recognized, com
munion and baptism. Witchcraft, idolatry, consult
ing conjurers, and divining by lot were to be pun
ished at the discretion of an ecclesiastical judge.
Penalties, both ecclesiastical and temporal, were
named against those guilty of polygamy, foulness,
priestly incontinence, and similar crimes. Ordeals
were denied and purgation carefully guarded. Sing
ing of psalms was permitted but well hedged about.
The doctrines of the Established church were put
into authoritative form in 1563, couched in forty-two
articles, stating the fundamental Scriptural teach
ings in succinct, definite language. They affirm the
unity of God, the divinity of Christ and his resurrec
tion, justification by faith, predestination, baptism

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 197
and communion in two sacraments, the royal suprem
acy under Christ of the English church, and the sanc
tity of oaths. These forty-two articles slightly
modified and reduced to thirty-nine, are the articles
now giving shape to Anglican belief. They are
practically considered infallible since no one can
be received Into the communion of that church with
out subscribing to those articles. Yet modified by
various non-conforming sects, they are practically
the statement of faith of the whole Anglo-Saxon race.
Along with other evidences of evolution was the
growing power of conscience enlightened by Scrip
ture teachings, for the people were hungrily reading
the Bible and slowly conforming to its precepts. All
restrictions of printing or of reading the precious
Book were removed, the people eagerly making use of
the Great Bible and the Paraphrases of Erasmus
that had been set up in the churches, and during the
reign of six years, seven editions of the Great Bible,
three of Mathew's, two of Coverdale's, and thirty-five
of the New Testament, were issued. Bucer wrote to
the king urging that he stop sequestrating the prop
erty of colleges and churches, as the Injury of these
was a detriment to the nation. The rapacious
courtiers had so filched the property of the universi
ties that they were greatly crippled and learning ran
low. The gentry, following the courtiers, had laid
hold upon the endowment of the grammar schools so
that the youth were not prepared and sent up to the
universities. Even the vicarages were not spared by
the courtiers. Edward did much to lessen the dis
tressing situation by founding new grammar schools,
and a college at Galway, Ireland. He, like Charle-

198 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
magne, had a school in his court to teach those under
his immediate touch. When week-day preaching was
set up at the market towns, crowds of eager people
flocked to hear it, for Edward, having six chaplains,
kept two by himself and sent out the other four on
itinerary preaching to the people. Durham was
made a county palatine and granted to the Duke of
Northumberland. A son of this duke had married
the Lady Jane Grey, cousin of Edward, and daughter
of the Duke of Suffolk, and the Duke of Northumber
land, now Lord Protector, sought Edward's consent
to have her succeed him on the throne, notwithstand
ing the will of Henry Eighth naming the Princess
Mary as his successor. As the Lady Jane was a
Protestant and Mary a Catholic, the dying king was
easily won to the plan, and while the chief justice,
Cranmer, with other leading men at first demurred,
finally they all consented, all, the Privy Council,
Judges, archbishop and others, signing a bill of
articles establishing the plan.
On July 6, 1553, Edward having been king for
six years, and yet not sixteen, died. It is usually
claimed that the Reformation took definite form dur
ing his short reign, but this period was too short to
make great changes in the nation. The sorrow to a
land whose king is a child was vividly suffered by
England. The disgust of the better element of re
form at the unblushing rapacity evinced by the lead
ing men, and the not groundless complaints of the
Catholics, helped prepare the hearty reception of
Mary to the exclusion of Lady Jane Grey under the
specious plan of Northumberland.

CHAPTER XX
It became apparent at once that Mary on her
accession was determined to stop all reformatory
measures, and to restore Catholic rights and doc
trines. This is not strange since she had been
strictly taught in those beliefs under her Spanish
mother, as Edward had been taught Protestant
beliefs under direction of his mother's Protes
tant relatives. The queen, like her late brother,
was of feeble frame, possibly ill health aided
in rendering her peevish and stubborn. Protestant
and Catholic alike helped her to the throne,
the Suffolk Protestants claiming that she promised
not to make any alterations in religion. She
had Catholic rites done at Edward's funeral, dirige,
and requiem sung In Latin, though later for
bade prayers for her brother's soul. At her corona
tion also the ceremonies were those of a Catholic cult.
At once she had Bishops Bonner, Gardiner and
others, lying in prison, released and restored to their
sees, depriving those placed in the seats of these men
during Edward's time. Shortly Cranmer, Latimer,
Ridley, Hooper, and others were thrown into prison,
some fled oversea, the congregations of foreigners
were broken up, these people and their pastors being
given twenty-four hours to leave the kingdom. The
bones of Bucer and Fagius were dug up and burned
while those of Peter Martyr's wife were also dug up
from the churchyard and buried in a dunghill. The
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200 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
duke of Northumberland and other prominent men
leading the movement In favor of Lady Jane Grey
were executed as traitors.
Parliament annulled certain laws of preceding
reigns, that by which Catherine had been divorced,
thus making Mary legitimate but denying that right
to Elizabeth, and a new oath of fealty was exacted.
The former liturgies were forbidden. Scripture verses
painted on the church walls were erased, altars re
stored, images set up, masses renewed, and most of
the people conformed. Mary, they said, was their
rightful sovereign and they would obey her. The
laws of Edward's reign, those against premunire,
felony and treason were repealed, as were those al
lowing priests to marry. The pressure put upon the
universities was yielded to. Catholic rites restored,
reforming professors and fellows set adrift, among
the latter being Fox, who would later write the his
tory of the martyrs in this reign. The bishop of
York, like Cranmer, was deprived of his seat. The
refugees to the continent numbering hundreds gath
ered in the cities of Antwerp, Strasburg, Frankfort,
Zurich, Cologne and others, setting up Protestant
worship and being aided with funds and sympathy
from England. The queen ordered the question of
transubstantiatlon to be debated in the Convocation
and settled into canon law, and the Catechism sent
out in the preceding reign to be suppressed.
The pope at once began hoping and planning for
the return of England to the papal fold, sending
secret emissaries to the queen, who assured him that
she desired to have the country reconciled to Rome.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 201
To aid in accomplishing this she asked to have Reg
inald Pole, that relative of Henry driven from Eng
land, sent to her with legatine powers, and though
many of Mary's councilors feared to have this done,
yet, after some delay, he was permitted to return to
England and as soon as Cranmer was burned Pole
accepted the archbishopric of Canterbury. Much
would depend upon the husband Mary might choose
and for so fair a mate as the queen of England would
be, with the power and riches of the great kingdom
with her, there would be many suitors. At that time
Spain was by far the most extensive and powerful of
all European nations, so that Mary could well be flat
tered that the Spanish prince, Philip, son of the
Emperor Charles Fifth, should seek her in marriage.
Dread and fear arose in England over the match but
it was made, the prince with his mule loads of bullion
to corrupt Parliament and the clergy coming to meet
his bride. She was thirty-seven, he twenty-five.
She was an English Tudor, he a dashing young Span
iard. But in spite of his gold and his Iridescent hopes
Parliament enacted that the officers of the church as
well as all others of the realm should remain at the
disposal of the queen. The dislike of the Spanish
match and fear for the reforms needed caused an
insurrection in Protestant Kent, under Sir Thomas
Wyat. The Devonshire people fell in with the rebels
but the rising was futile, the majority of people
recognizing the legality of Mary's sovereignty and
sustaining her on their consciences. Death came to
the innocent Lady Jane Grey, to Wyat, Suffolk and

202 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
to many of their prominent followers, while for a
time a spirit of collusion endangered even Eliza
beth. Mary, after this fiasco, was evidently more secure
than before in pushing popish reaction. Orders were
soon sent out to prelates to see that ecclesiastical
laws in force in Henry Eighth's time be put into
active use now, if they were not in opposition to the
laws of the kingdom. A commission consisting of
Bishops Gardiner, Bonner, and Tonstal was ap
pointed to "convert" the archbishop of York, Robert
of St. David's, John of Chester and Paul of Bristol,
and if they were married to deprive them of their
sees. They were deprived, as were three more re
forming bishops — Hooper, Healey, and Taylor.
With these changes sixteen new bishops were put into
those places made vacant or into sees prepared for
the new order. It was estimated by Bishop Parker
in the next reign that of sixteen thousand clergy in
various places, twelve thousand were deprived,
though lower estimates, one as small as three thou
sand, had been made by others.
Into these vacancies monks and friars turned out
of their places in previous reigns were put, as well
as utterly incompetent and unprepared men, glut
tonous, idle, luxurious, whose work among the people
was most distressing, quarreling with them fre
quently about the fees for masses, diriges, baptisms,
and other offices, "pattering and wawling" their
Latin service, little of which they or their people
understood. A visitation was now projected with
this set of questions: Whether the clergy so lived,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 203
taught, did, that in the judgment of indifferent men
they seemed to seek the honor of God, the church and
the queen, whether they were married, kept hospital
ity, secured a curate when absent from their parish,
devoutly celebrated the service and the processions,
or were suspected of heresy, haunted ale houses, tav
erns, bowling alleys, conventicles, officiated in Eng
lish, visited the sick, went in habit and tonsure, car
ried swords or daggers, expounded the Apostles'
Creed, Ten Commandments, taught the people to love
God and their neighbors, the seven deadly sins, the
seven heavenly virtues, the seven works of mercy, and
the seven sacraments. A formidable list of clerical
duties, but how about their people?
The imprisoned bishops, Cranmer, Latimer and
Ridley, were given an opportunity of debating the
burning question of the time, that of the real pres
ence. On the presentation of the written statements
to them in prison they all declared them untrue.
These prisoners had but a day or two of notice to
enter the debate, were not allowed access to their
books or papers, were not permitted to confer with
each other, as steps toward a fair field. After en
during an unfair discussion, brow-beaten and abused,
they were all declared heretics and were again re
manded to prison.
The Protestants, crowded to suffocation In all the
prisons, united in a statement of beliefs, desiring to
put them before the queen, the Court and ParHa
ment. They said they believed the Old Testament
and the New Testament books, the Catholic church,
the Apostles' Creed, and certain of the earliest

204 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
church CouncUs. They defined justification to be
wholly of the mercy of God through Christ, which
could be known by faith, that being a persuasion
wrought in the mind by the Holy Ghost, with sub
mission to the wiU of God. They denounced many
of the papal doctrines and desired the public services
in English. They favored the marriage of the
clergy. The brutality at this time shown for religious
opinions was most astounding. After a thousand
years of Christian profession the highly inflamed
condition of mind seemed to restore the deadly spirit
of the old heathenism. Protestant was hardly less
brutal than papist. It will be seen in the succeeding
reign that leading Puritans also failed in toleration
though themselves in this reign were made terrible
sufferers by this spirit. It is a joy that in the reign
of Edward Sixth it can be said that not a Catholic
was put to death for his religious opinions. But in
this reign, from archbishop to mere boys, just for
an opinion on the real presence they were burned at
the stake by the score. To deny that Christ's body
was brought to the sacrament by the ritual said by
the priest over the bread and wine, was to pronounce
one's own death sentence. Gardiner thought a few
cases of extreme punishment would deter others from
heresy, but each burning seemed in its recoil on the
feelings of the people to make a hundred heretics. It
appears that Cardinal Pole soon saw the futility of
these severities, turning the punishment of the
heretics mostly into the hands of Bonner and Gardi
ner and even Gardiner appeared to be weary of the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 205
bloody brutality, leaving Bonner to do the work and
bear the odium.
The sickening scenes cannot all be told. The lin
gering dungeon for slow starvation and disease to
do their fateful work, the excruciating rack, the
threatened terrors of an eternal hell, were used to
frighten men, women and children to accept the mild
teachings of the gentle Nazarene.
But it was aU in vain.
The piled-up, remorseless killing was making the
nation enraged. Bonner and but few others held on
in the persecution.
Cardinal Pole being deputed as legate to arrange
for the return to Rome, the formality of reconcilia
tion was gone through. On St. Andrew's day, the two
houses of Parliament, after an address to them by
the Cardinal, waited upon the Court, when the Lord
Chancellor inquired of them if they were ready to
ask the Cardinal for their pardon, to acknowledge
the papal supremacy and return to the Catholic
church. A few responded, yea, and the silence of the
remainder being taken for consent, a petition to this
effect was presented to the king and queen. In
honor of this return processions were made in Rome
and in London, but in the latter ho cries of "God
Save," no caps were thrown into the air to show
public j oy, which so enraged Gardiner that he caused
many arrests. Papal directions were given to Pole
on his starting for England to forgive repentant
heretic priests who should relinquish their wives, to
lessen the strict observance of Lent, permitting eggs,
milk and meat if the physician should so order. The

206 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
pope demanded Peter Pence again and denounced the
alienation of church lands.
As in previous times efforts were made to keep out
books but in vain. As early as 1558, a proclamation
came out against having heretical books, the penalty
for this treason being that such should be counted
rebels and should be executed under martial law.
The exUes on the continent looked to it that the land
should be well supplied with books and pamphlets
upon current issues. The press steadUy grew to be
a sublime power. Not only was it used in the great
issues between Protestant and Catholic, but by it the
reformers among themselves discussed free will,
Arianism, Pelagianism. Reading the Bible does not
seem to have been denied in England during this
reign, but the refugees, thinking a new version was
needed, began the famous Geneva Bible which was
issued the year after Mary's death. The violent
Knox had predicted a speedy deliverance, and indeed
a general impression prevailed, both among the
refugees and in England, that Mary's reign would be
short. Coverdale also wrote to encourage the perse
cuted ones. Knox's "Blast Against the Monstrous
Regiment (Government) of Women" was written
against Mary, but not coming out in England until
Elizabeth's time caused that sensitive sovereign to
hate the writer, notwithstanding his apology that
Providence might have appointed her to reform re
ligion. In those terrible years a true sense of charity
burned in the hearts of some who aided the prisoners

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 207
and abandoned families with money, food, care and
sympathy. Bernher, a Switzer, heedless of danger
and toil, went among the prisons and prisoners, a very
angel of mercy. One George Eagle, a tailor, was
nicknamed "Trudgeover," because In his humble way
he went trudging over the country teaching and con
firming the reformers in their course, through Essex,
Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent. It was treason to collect
more than six persons In a meeting for any purpose,
but often in secret he had many to listen to him.
The Council finally setting a price of twenty pounds
on him, secured his person, hung and quartered him
for treason. Nor was he alone in this work since
preachers in other parts went among the people,
teaching, comforting, and encouraging. Even in
London where the brutal Bonner was harrying to
the death his number of two hundred, Bentham, a
reformer, and others acting as pastors, had meetings
constantly, moving their gatherings from place to
place, sometimes as many as two hundred collecting
in the teeth of death to hear the preacher and to read
the Bible.
So intense did the persecuting spirit become that
great fear arose lest the Inquisition should be set up
in England as It was In Spain and in other countries.
Indeed, a visitation was set up which went far toward
that terrible thing. A large commission was formed
any three of whom could by witnesses, presentment
or other politic way they could devise, search out all
heresies, disseminators of heretical books, punish all
who did not attend mass or go to church, or enter

208 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
processions, or take holy bread and water. Informa
tion in these cases was to be rendered secretly but
not to be entered on the records.
The number that perished under the awful perse
cutions of those five years will doubtless never be
known. One historian counts up two hundred sev
enty-seven. Another places the number at two hun
dred eighty-four, of these fifty-five being women
and four children. A writer in EHzabeth's reign put
the number at four hundred. In a life of Ridley
written in that reign, presumably by Grindal, it is said
in the preface that eight hundred perished in the first
two years of Mary's reign. Besides those counted
as perishing at the stake, hundreds died in prisons,
from starvation, loathsome diseases, and from that
despair apt to creep upon one in such durance. It
was claimed also that many were murdered in prison
like Richard Hunne in the time of Henry Eighth.
During the year 1658 the queen's health presaged
the approach of death. Some time before, her hus
band had deserted her and England. All her efforts to
restore papal control in her country appeared to be
futile. The people at large were less inclined to ac
cept that rule than when she came to the throne.
The people also saw that she was the foremost agent
in the terrible persecutions and bloodshed. She saw
that the mass of her subj ects were alienated from her
and were turning their longing eyes to the woman who
was to succeed her. Finally, with these accumulated
distresses, Mary, long suffering from internal ail
ment, died of the dropsy November 17, 1568. The
queen we can think from this distance away did the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 209
best she knew. The Spanish blood and the Tudor
spirit can be accused of producing much of her
bigotry and narrowness. She was devoutly pious,
composing hearty prayers, one for the time of sick
ness, another for the approach of death. Of spot
less character, well educated, she gave liberally to
church enterprises and founded several valuable insti
tutions, yet lacked patriotism that would do noble
things for the nation. The church instead of the
nation absorbed her affections and labors.

CHAPTER XXI
Elizabeth came to the throne after two reigns of
comparative failure. That of Edward Sixth was not
a success in its Protestantism, nor were the four
years of Mary a success in their CathoHcism. No
united England was prepared for the one or the other
religious practice. Elizabeth and the astute states
men she gathered about her saw this condition of the
nation so that her beginnings to both parties must
have seemed vague. She had herself conformed to
the Catholic ritual as required by Mary's laws,
though it was supposed to be a policy method for
safety rather than as a matter of conscience or of
faith. The Romish ritual was used at the corona
tion, Bishop Oglethorpe of Carlisle performing it,
the archbishop of York hesitating to crown her,
owing to her supposed sympathy with the Reforma
tion. She was deeply moved by the enthusiasm of
the populace, bowing and smiling at their hearty wel
come. Her recognition of them was a new thing to
the English from a sovereign, and it was prophetic
of the way she was to appeal to the affections of her
subjects throughout a long reign.
Her Council was partly of reformers and partly
of papists, though her trusted counselors from the
first were a small group of those favorable to reform.
Cecil, who had held some court place in Edward's
time, but had lived In the retirement of his manors
in Mary's reign, was chosen chief secretary, and as
210

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 211
long as he lived till near the end of her reign was fore
most in directing her deliberations. At once perse
cution ceased, those imprisoned for their religion
being set at liberty. Portions of the Bible in church
services were allowed to be read in English. The
Lord Keeper told both houses of Parliament "that
the honor of God was the queen's principal concern,
claiming precedence in the debates, that religion was
the surest support of the commonwealth, that uni
formity in belief and practice was a necessary con
dition." In this last claim for uniformity lay a
germ of many future troubles. The Convocation by
the bishops sent up an address to the House of Lords,
urging three matters, that there should be no change
allowed in doctrines especially touching the real
presence, that there should be no precedency of St.
Peter's power permitted, and third, that ecclesiastical
questions should be settled by the clergy. Over
these questions great debates were carried on but no
definite results were reached. The Book of Common
Prayer was soon brought forward from its banishment
of the preceding reign, reviewed and slightly revised
and ordered into use, though the prelates opposed it.
On the day of St. John Baptist it went into universal
use though not wholly pleasing to the Catholic party.
In an edition of 1560, prayers to be used in private
and in families were omitted so as to confine the
service wholly to the churches, looking toward com
plete uniformity.
The royal supremacy was revived, though it was
strongly opposed by the prelates and by the influence
of Rome. On the tender to the clergy of an oath

212 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
covering this claim, aU the prelates save Kitchen of
Llandaff refused to take It, consequently were de
prived as were many other clerics, the number being
reckoned by different historians at about two hun
dred out of nine thousand four hundred in England.
Those deprived were permitted to remain unmolested
in the country, even the infamous Bonner. For the
first refusal to take the oath one fell under the pen
alty of premunire, and of treason for the second
refusal. Archbishop Parker obtained the queen's
permission for his suffragans to use gentleness in ad
ministering the oath, one step toward toleration.
Some of the prelates coming to remonstrate with the
queen were told by her that if any of her subjects
should help the pope's pretensions, she should regard
them as enemies of God and the crown. Her rela
tions with the pope became strained for a papal
nuncio was refused admission into the kingdom.
The pope had prevailed on Mary, the Scot Princess,
a niece of Henry Eighth, to assume with her hus
band, the dauphin of France, the arms of England,
owing to the Illegitimacy claimed for Elizabeth. Of
course this assumption drove Elizabeth to the re
formers. In a short time most of the clerics con
formed, and most of the laity, at least in the early
part of the reign, attended church services.
Many of the reformers who fled oversea during the
terror of Mary's reign now returned to bring to
England the higher culture obtained those years in
contact with the great scholars of the continent.
Coming with the advanced ideas of the Reformation,
some of these men were to be valuable helpers in revis-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 213
ing the Prayer Book and in other duties, some to be
forces of contention and agitation. The religious
ferment that was working to free the religious con
sciousness, preparing England for its vast expansion,
for its liberty of thought and worship, and its wide
spread colonies whose religious privileges were even
to surpass those of the mother country, began deep
ening and intensifying early in Elizabeth's reign.
People were reading and thinking as never before.
For discussion more liberty was given than In all
the past, the early germs of toleration were starting
up among the masses and were being protected by
the broad-minded Cecil and the other statesmen of
that age. The first great step In that toleration,
taken unconsciously, was when Elizabeth and her
Council at first ordered punishment for heresy to
cease. In London and In other localities the churches
were cleaned of crosses and images, these being pub
licly burned In Smithfield, a harmless avengement for
the martyrs' lives offered in that gehenna. With
these more spectacular objects went copes, censers,
altar cloths, banner staffs and other adornments and
also books of doctrine and ritual.
A committee of continental refugees had in Mary's
time undertaken a new version of the Bible at Geneva
under the supervision of Calvin and Benza. John
Knox was among these revisers, he and most of them
on EHzabeth's accession leaving the Bible work and
returning to England. However, an EngHsh
scholar, Whittingham, and two others remained at
the task in Geneva, issuing the edition known as the

214 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Geneva Bible In 1560. Of course It was quickly
scattered over England though not welcomed by the
queen or by Archbishop Parker and others. It was
the first copy of the Bible to have Its chapters, made
years before, divided into verses, a help since of in
estimable worth to students and teachers of the book.
The new version was done with scholarly reference
to the original Greek and Hebrew while its notes and
leanings were distinctly touched with the system of
theology known by Calvin's name, teaching predes
tination and election. It was printed with Roman
type and in both size and price put in easy reach of
the people. Calvinistic teachings were already be
coming Influential in England. Some of these teach
ings tasted of liberty and that to a Tudor was most
bitter. Yet so gladly was this Bible caught up
by the people and read that sixty editions came out
before the queen's death, and a hundred more before
it was finally superseded by the King James' trans
lation. The Bible largely supplied the want of
literary craving and the search after truth. The
bishops not liking the Geneva Bible, Parker and
others projected another one to be done by the prel
ates or by those in sympathy with them. This was
the Bishops' Bible, large and costly. Still In forty
years It passed through nineteen editions.
Another book, put forth In 1561, Fox's "Book of
Martyrs, or Acts and Monuments," had a profound
influence in helping forward the reformers but
greatly exasperated the Catholics. Its story of the
Marian martyrs doubtless had some extravagant
opinions but being mostly a compilation of state

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 215
papers of EngHsh history as well as testimony of
eye witnesses and contemporaries it can be regarded
as reliable and was eagerly read by the masses. It
showed up the awful spirit of religious intolerance
in the bloodthirsty practices of the hierarchy and
royalty dominated by papal influences. Grindal,
while a Marian exile, greatly aided Fox in making
the book. Going through several editions it was or
dered to be set in the churches alongside the Bible
for the people to read. Horror sent a shudder
through the sympathetic people. But Fox, the au
thor, for his ultra reforming views, was neglected in
preferments, and when with other clergy of London
was required by Archbishop Parker to subscribe to
the order of uniformity, he took the Greek Testa
ment out of his pocket and said, "To this I will
subscribe." If a few men were scholarly like the returning
exiles, a great number of the clergy, owing to the
death of capable ones by the plague, the deprivations
of many for nonconformity, had been given parishes
though Illy prepared In mental training or In reli
gious spirit for their high calling or spiritual labors.
Some were profoundly ignorant of the Bible, were
grossly immoral, drinking, rioting, gambling, still
following the worship of relics and images, favoring
pilgrimages, believing in sorcery and witchcraft, and
using enchantments. So poor was the service ren
dered by the clerics that laymen were appointed to
read sermons and homilies furnished them. The ex
periment was not wholly a success, for the people
increasing in general knowledge required preachers

216 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
of education and of mental force. The universities,
denuded of their endowments could not supply
half of the demand. Some of the most scholarly
preachers, especiaUy those returning from the con
tinent, owing to their Lutheran or Calvinistic prin
ciples were denied the places they were fitted to
fill. Within two or three years after Elizabeth's acces
sion, she and her Council deemed there was danger
from the discontented Catholics, for these saw the
decided trend of the government toward reformation
and the evident drifting of the people the same way,
making the leading Catholics surly, and arousing
hatred against the Queen. It was claimed that plots
for her assassination were known. The pope's at
titude of hostility toward her with his encourage
ment of the Scottish Queen's pretentions to the
throne of England began to have an influence. A
few of the Catholics were arrested and subjected to
trial. If they would not use the Prayer Book and
would persist in celebrating mass, it was counted
not simply heresy but treason, since it was contrary
to established law. A few fled the kingdom, becom
ing on the continent busy malcontents, having
learned the lesson well of the Protestant refugees
during Mary's reign.
There began taking form in the early years of
Elizabeth a movement that has had profoundest In
fluence upon the religious Hfe of the Anglo-Saxon
race. At the very start the Queen was urged by
some of the Genevan exUes to take radical position
in eliminating all traces of popery from the church

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 217
service since they deemed these Imperfect, use
less, and pernicious. Doutbless the great Queen and
her statesmen were wiser than these fervent reformers,
as the nation so divided in its beliefs would hardly
have endured such radicalism and this the govern
ment saw. But these reformers were learned, Intense
and persistent. They became a fretful thorn In the
side of the body politic and ecclesiastic. Hooper
and Grindal objected to being inducted into office
habited in the mystic toggery of the ordinary prel
ates. The House of Commons had early given ex
pression to a desire for more simple and direct serv
ice, and to leave off many of the ceremonies and doc
trines which seemed to them to smack of popery.
The lower house of Convocation asked for similar
reform, such requests being specially significant on
the supposition that these houses were in more sym
pathetic touch with the common people than the
upper ones and thus gave voice to the nation at
large. With these things the Queen was displeased,
considering herself alone the proper person, as the
head of the church, to deal with the matters of
church polity and doctrine and claiming that her
prerogative was encroached upon by such interfer
ence. She insisted upon uniformity. In her Council
was difference of opinion regarding her attitude up
on this question.
The reformers were nicknamed "Puritans," owing
to their claim of purity in ceremonies, doctrine and
Hfe. Among the reforming clerics and reformers
was Thomas Cartwright, a Cambridge professor,
who with his great ability argued apninst the claim

218 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
of Christ's descent into hell, and against pluralities,
nonresidence of the clergy, and excommunication.
He had been an exile in Geneva, was highly educated,
of dauntless spirit, weU connected, and was able to
direct the faction into great efficiency. Pilkington,
bishop of Durham, was also in favor of pushing
further into reform. Numbers of dissenting clergy
men for refusal to conform in garments and in cer
tain rites and doctrines were deprived of their
benefices. The new Anglican church was to re
pudiate Catholicism, but was very determined that
the hierarchy and Queen should proceed cautiously.
But here the wedge was entering that on the one
hand was to separate the Protestant church polity
of Great Britain Into the Established Church, pay
ing much heed to rites and ceremonies brought along
with the Romish practices, and on the other hand,
into the Dissenters who claimed that they sought a
purer religious life by direct approach and less
ritualism to the Heavenly Father. They urged,
with reason it would seem, that If a part of the old
ceremonies were retained why not retain all. In
stead of allowing peaceful evolution the Dissenters
grew heated, refused to attend church, held in deri
sion such priests as wore the vestments and followed
the order of service sent out by the Queen. In Lon
don much neglect of conforming grew up among the
clergy, but being put sharply under subscription,
most of them conformed save a few strenuous souls.
Cambridge University became especiaUy restless
under the requirement to wear the habit and conform
in other ways, when Cecil expostulated with the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 219
Queen lest the insistence of her orders should cause
the colleges to be deserted.
With this active, restless body of Puritan dissi
dents, the large number of the Catholic party, and
with the Established Anglican church, the matters
of religion continued the triangular situation of the
preceding reign. The English love of rights and
liberty illy brooked the repression that Elizabeth
insisted upon. When it is remembered that in those
times toleration was considered a wrong allowance
and that the Queen confounded nonconformity with
treason the situation can best be understood. The
Catholics who fled oversea carried on their propa
ganda as pensioners of Spain against Elizabeth in
favor of the Scottish queen, who was an ardent
papist. The founding of the Douay College in
1668, with others still later, having the openly ex
pressed purpose of teaching missionaries to be sent
to England for bringing back that country to the
papal control, might well alarm the nation.
With the flush of liberty obtained these years,
the Englishmen remaining on the home soil, Puritan
and CathoHc and Orthodox were loyal to the Queen
and her government in spite of her tyranny. Eng
land was at school. The pope giving up in despair
of bringing Elizabeth, "that vessel of iniquity," to
accept Roman supremacy, finally excommunicated
her. Those young English Catholics sent from the
continent into England as missionaries had papal
permission to assume any character they found nec
essary to cover their proceedings, might pretend to
be conformists, Puritans, or become married, since

220 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
union with a heretic was void, or they might go
under different names or adopt any pretense what
ever to guard themselves, to teach the CathoHcs,
hear confession, perform mass. It was said that
three hundred were scattered over the island, rarely
being betrayed by the people though hotly sought by
the Queen's officers. The oaths under which they
worked were far reaching, the dangers imminent,
their constancy amazing.
As before, the press was a powerful agent in the
agitation over these matters. The Bible and con
troversial books and pamphlets were scattered
broadcast. The Puritans, appealing to Parliament,
stated their grievances and laid out the plan of
church government they wanted. By this plan the
hierarchy were to be set aside, the congregations and
presbyteries to have a voice in the selection and ordi
nation of ministers, but in the plan there was no room
for nonconformity. Continental authors sent their
books oversea in great numbers, among these being
the "Decado" of BuUinger, to give practical sermons
on the leading doctrines of Christianity for the use
of the uneducated preachers, also Calvin's Insti
tutes, and similar books. In vain orders of Council,
Acts of Parliament, Star Chamber Court rulings,
forbade the importation, printing, or selling of books
defending nonconformity, but they came without no
tice, were scattered secretly and were read with ob
serving spirit. One strong book was Bishop Jewel's
"Apology," justifying and defending the English
church against the Catholics.
It Is of peculiar interest that this book written

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 221
in Latin was translated into the English by a
woman, Lady Anne Bacon, wife of the Lord Keeper
and mother of Francis Bacon. This translation the
learned lady sent to Bishop Jewel to review with the
note written in Greek, but the translation was so
well done that the bishop is said not to have changed
a word. Many women of the upper classes were at
this time highly educated, not indeed in the colleges
that were not open to the sex but by private tutors,
and earlier in some of the better nunneries. These
women were the first fruits and promise of free college
education now granted Anglo-Saxon women over the
world. The Puritans insisting on their right to follow
the methods of worship to suit their convictions,
first began absenting themselves from church serv
ices, then neglecting fasts, festivals, and violating
Lent, and then came to holding clandestine meetings.
Among them their own preachers went stealthily
somewhat as the Catholic missionaries went among
their people. Very great was the Queen's dislike
of the Puritans In their nonconformity. By 1666
their conventicles began to take organized form.
After consultation and prayers of both laity and
deposed ministers, they decided to break loose from
the Established Church and gather privately to wor
ship God according to their wish and consciences.
Throwing aside the Anglican liturgy they adopted
the German form. They were persistently watched,
often arrested, then again spasmodically granted re
spite and again severely handled. They began form
ing presbyteries or classes, held synods, but had this

222 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
deference to the apostoHc succession that they never
ordained their own ministers, depending on the prel
ates of England or on some of the continental divines
to whom they went for that rite. So many were
deprived or else withdrew under conscientious
scruples that numerous churches were left without
ministers, causing great discontent, complaint aris
ing especially in London over the neglect of service
and the decay of religion. Parker and others did
herculean toil to remedy these things but it was im
possible wholly to supply the vacant cures. Later
Bishop Sandys said In a sermon before the Queen
that In the north country there were people who
did not hear a sermon once in seven years, he might
say, once in seventeen years.
As the controversies deepened the nonconformists
took more and more radical positions. They who
stuck for toleration of their convictions and ideals
purposed on their part to be intensely intolerant in
their church government, demanding uniformity to
the extent of the magistrate's sword. As if the
bloody persecutions so fresh In memory made them
beside themselves, some of the dissidents would at
times even spit in the face of those In papistical gar
ments and revile them. When Bonner died it was
considered unsafe to take his body to burial through
the streets in the daytime, so at midnight the cortege
of diminutive proportions secretly carried his de
tested remains to their concealed resting place.
The Puritans in 1571 introduced a bill by the hand
of Strickland for modifying the liturgy more into
conformity to the teaching at Geneva. This ex-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 223
asperated the Queen who ordered the bold states
man to leave the House of Commons and come to
it no more, but this arbitrary act being resented by
the House, the Queen on comprehending the spirit
of that body demanding the restoration of the de
leted member, released the doughty champion of
rights. Not only in parliamentary and court circles but
also in the hierarchal did the Queen call for enforce
ment of laws for conformity. The archbishop was
crowded beyond his judgment by her to this end, as
were many of the other prelates. Two men promi
nent in college life were found lacking under the rules
and were deprived, Sampson, dean of Christ Church,
and Humphrey, president of Magdalene. Cam
bridge became hot over wearing vestments, deans,
fellows and others appealing to Cecil so that the
court was greatly stirred in the matter. Elizabeth,
with her Tudor inheritance, seemed incapable of
comprehending the spirit of the English people with
the Bible In their hands.
But with all these points of severity England was
a country attracting liberty seekers from other lands.
John Alasco, the Polish refugee, who with his con
gregation gathered in Edward's day had been a
fugitive in Mary's, now returned to London, cleans
ing out their former house of worship used during
the late reign as an arsenal. Grindal, to have an
Anglican cleric over the congregation, was made
their superintendent as he was of other returning
foreigners, Dutch and French among them. But
not all were welcome. Some Dutch Anabaptists,

224 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
as well as Arlans, in the persistent advocacy of their
tenets, were given twenty-four hours to leave the
kingdom, but all did not go, some remaining to be
come a constant source of annoyance to the authori
ties.

CHAPTER XXII
Those Catholic prelates deprived in the start of
Elizabeth's time for refusing the oath of supremacy
were kept in gentle ward, the trial of two of them
amounting to nothing decisive. But the pope was
tireless In attempts to rescue his beloved England
from the grip of the Reformation. Some of the
missionaries or secret teachers though claimed by
papal authorities to be sent only for religious pur
poses were tried and executed as traitors, this view
of them being the only one taken in England. The
Queen issued an order that Catholic parents should
not send their children abroad for education, since
to do so was to "make them dissidents and often con
spirators." Of course the order was evaded.
There was continual fretting between the authorities
and Catholic missionaries. While the repressive
power of the government filled the prisons, the dis
content increased. To the Catholics it was persecu
tion only, to the government an attempt to save it
self from impending dangers. The secret agents
of Elizabeth had learned of the purposes formed be
tween the pope and Spain for that grand attempt
later upon the Queen's dominions by the Invincible
Armada. The names even of those doomed to death
on the conquest were given out.
One cannot help feeling that the deepest, richest
religious life of all this period was that developed
by the Puritans. Out of their spirit and labors were
225

226 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
to come vastest results to the masses of the nation.
They were in best touch with the most progressive
part of the people though despised by the Estabhsh
ment, hated by the Queen, and in fiery antagonism
with the CathoHcs. The court and hierarchy being
greatly alarmed, frantic efforts were made to stop
their influence. In London their increase was rapid
and their power great. Their ablest writer, Cart
wright, who had fled oversea, on returning was
clapped Into prison. His two "Admonitions to Par
liament" arguing against the remnants of popery in
the Anglican church, and making plea for churches
to a new order of church government, and for
liberty, were reprinted In many editions, creating a
profound impression. Not alone among the lowly
did their tenets find favor, for many of the nobility
sided with them in the court and out of it. The
French refugees also took sides with them. The
Bishop of Oxford grew weary of his duties and de
sired to resign, assigning as one reason that sectaries
were increasing rapidly, as also their refusal to con
form to surplice, their not conducting services ac
cording to Common Prayer and speaking against
the hierarchy.
The Puritans justly hated the Star Chamber and
High Court Commission in the arbitrary courses of
those courts. When the Committee of the Commons
waited on the archbishop with a report from the
Commission of Thirty-two, ordered for the ref
ormation of ecclesiastical laws, Peter Wentworth,
hot Puritan that he was, replied to that prelate, who
required the references to be made to him, "No, by

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 227
the faith I bear to God, we will pass nothing before
we know what it is. For that were but to make you
popes. Make you popes who list, for we will make
you none."
The Established Church seems to have been ham
pered by the great Queen as the Puritans and
Catholics were persecuted by her. She was urgent,
sometimes imperative, to the prelates to insist on
uniformity. She learned little if at all that noncon
formity was not treason. That it was not heresy
she never dreamed. Grindal, succeeding Parker at
Canterbury was much more lenient than his pred
ecessor. Indeed in one case, that called "prophesy
ing," Grindal dared the Queen's commands. The
Queen directed each bishop to put a stop to prophe
sying in his own diocese. These prophesyings were
reaUy meetings at which clergy and laity gathered
where discussion of various things was taken up so
that much latitude trending toward freedom of
speech was granted. Under her peremptory orders
it was mostly stopped, though under protest from
clergy and people.
It was the more unfortunate that anything should
have hindered a method for Improving the ministry.
For now In 1582 petitions of the most startling state
ments came up from the people. From Northamp
ton they said that not one minister was there, from
Cornwall that of the one hundred forty Incumbents
not one could preach, many being pluralists, others
nonresidents, and that the ninety thousand people
of the diocese were perishing for the bread of life.
Sixty churches, the petition ran on, were mostly

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
suppHed with men who were guilty of the grossest
sins, they were felons, drunkards, Sunday gamesters,
and of unspeakable foulness. After twenty-eight
years of the Estabhshed Church a report to ParHa
ment showed that there were but two thousand pas
tors for ten thousand parishes.
Another sect beside the Puritans took form dur
ing those times whose lineal descendants hold a
prominent place now in the religious life of the
Anglo-Saxon race, the Brownists, represented by
the Independents or Congregatlonalists. Their
founder, Robert Browne, first Imbibing Cartwright's
principles, refined upon them, pushing still further
toward extremities. As early as 1569 he began put
ting forth his peculiar views and some later his fol
lowers and those of Barrow, renouncing all churches
but their own, considered each congregation self-
governing and ordained their own ministers. Bar
row was hung in London for his heretical teachings.
Many fell in with the new sect both of the lowly
and of the quality. Two of these people, Elias
Thacker and John Copplnge, having been accused
of denying the Queen's supremacy, were executed as
traitors. The Lord Treasurer said in 1692 that
these Brownists had increased to twenty thousand
and a bill having been brought forward to banish
or kill them, a milder bill, the nation having grown
sick of such severity and of so many killings, was
substituted. Many of these people were imprisoned
for holding conventicles, dying in prison from hun
ger, filth and contagion.
Before the Independents had entered upon their

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 229
self-assertion of religious rights by organized form
the Puritans had begun a similar course by organiz
ing presbyteries, bodies almost as democratic as
the congregational organizations of the Brownists.
The first of these was formed in 1572 at Wands
worth, a suburb of London. Field, Wilcox and
other ministers, eleven elders and other laymen met
and organized. All over the kingdom this form of
church government gradually spread, really being
done for self-preservation. From an early time they
had strong friends In the court. In response to a
remonstrance there came out a court order for less
virulence in the enforcement of the laws against the
heretics of that period. The fountains of toleration
at length began to break forth. If the Queen feared
for the state the prelates feared for the Establish
ment. When In 1683 the tolerant Grindal's death
made way for Whitgift as Archbishop of Canter
bury, the Queen found one whose determination for
uniformity was as strenuous as her own. For in
ability to meet Whitglft's conditions no less than
two hundred thirty-three ministers in six different
counties were suspended from their parishes. Many
of these men being learned and worthy, were taken
up by the gentry as chaplains and teachers for their
families so that their influence for good was not
wholly lost.
In the meantime the Catholics were untiring in
their efforts not to lose all their people and interests
in England. Their activity was a constant menace.
The rumors of a concerted league against Protestant
ism were growing into a reality at least in Spain,

230 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
where a mighty expedition for the conquest of Eng
land was preparing. Persistent plans were known
to be ever present for the release of Mary Stuart
to seat her on the throne of Elizabeth. Yet while
such portentous clouds Impended, another section of
the Catholics, laying claim to their rights because
of their loyalty, prepared a petition to court, saying
that the CathoHcs considered EHzabeth Queen both
by law and right, that they deemed it sinful for
any one to lift up hand against the Lord's anointed,
that was not In the power of the pope to give any
one license to do a sinful thing, and added other
loyal expressions. But the bearer of the olive
branch was arrested and thrown Into prison. In
some Instances those arrested were subjected to tor
ture for eliciting knowledge of their plans and ac
complices. The methods of torture when this was
resorted to were horrible, and their grim instruments
still preserved for the curious sightseer are blood
curdling. Not finding the courts, either civil or
ecclesiastical, active enough in matters of religious
direction the Queen had the two special courts, that
of the Star Chamber and the High Commission, in
active operation.
The Renascence, at first touching only a few of
the educated, was reaching more people by the print
ing press, controversy, and general uplift. In
creasing wealth fostered by the continued peace of
the decades, when farming and stock raising and
manufactures and commerce were all enlarging the
power of the nation, increased also the spirit of free
dom and self-assertion. The larger use of books

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 231
was also a power for rights. With the diffusion of
knowledge the reading masses would have their
rights or remonstrance would grow to revolution.
Had the Tudor dynasty continued it probably would
have met the fate of the Stuarts. But after all the
masses loved their Queen. She was in her prog
resses about the country, of easy access, affable, and
she captivated the common people. When Dobbs,
for writing against the French marriage of the
Queen, was doomed to have his hand cut off that
penned the offensive document, swung his cap in the
air with the remaining hand, crying "God save Queen
Elizabeth," he was no more loyal than the masses
who responded to her call at the approach of the
Spanish Armada. The experience which discovery
and adventure was giving her seamen, furnished her
captains of unrivaled ability and bravery when the
struggle of Protestantism and Catholicism was
finally brought to the arbitrament of battle.
And the matter took the form mostly of a religious
war. The struggle In the Lowlands was definitely
to destroy Protestantism, this threat including Eng
land. No wonder then that the growing spirit of
Protestantism in England sent her swift warships
scouring the seas In search of the hated Catholics
and their wealth, and that thousands of Englishmen
were found fighting among the Dutch against Alva
and his Spaniards. The acrimonious squabbling of
the sects was mostly forgotten. The pen of the
Puritan was laid aside for the bill and sword. Al
most all the Catholics joined Anglican and Puritan in
a mighty swell of patriotic devotion. A Catholic

232 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
nobleman. Lord Howard of Effingham, ably com
manded the assembled fleet, nor did Anglican or
Puritan captain hesitate to fight under him. What
was touching those leaders was touching the whole
nation. Peasant and gentry, yeoman and mechanic,
merchant and miner, felt the uplift. That uplift
was apparent In mental realms, in political, social
and religious activities.
But it was an anomaly, not unknown however in
history, that as western Europe was thus grasping
at means to raise its own life to higher freedom, it
should enter upon a system of slavery of the most
human atrocity. In the Spanish possessions of the
New World the greed of gold had led them to force
the fragile natives to work in the mines at deadly
toil until the once populous Islands and provinces
had been left without inhabitants. Under the un
accustomed labor and the biting whip of the drivers,
millions had perished. To remedy this decay of na
tive Americans, Africa began to be entered for more
hardy slaves, the trader buying captives of the local
chiefs, or himself making a foray upon the unoffend
ing village of hapless blacks. For more than two
centuries this Infamous traffic tore away from their
native home millions of Africans, who in the inex
pressible horrors of the middle passage suffered be
yond conception, the survivors of this horror to be
subjected to the remorseless conditions of planta
tion toil, or of labor in the half remunerative mines
in a service the most brutalizing ever known. The
curse of this system of African slavery was to rest
another century upon the fairest branch of the An-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 233
glo-Saxon race and threaten the existence of that
nation through a bloodly fratricidal war. Inner
glimpses of the people at this time show also an
exaggerated hypocrisy and religious bigotry as at
tendants upon the arbitrary spirit of the Queen.
There were cold charity and astonishing dissolute
ness, since freedom was often mistaken for license,
fears of great dangers sometimes turned out to be
bogies, and the nation seemed treading upon volcanic
forces that were increasing beneath it. If con
formity was conceded, then Sabbath breaking, gam
bling, drunkenness and other fashionable vices were
condoned. The court and prelates were not un
aware of these things, reproofs and visitations now
and then acting their checks. Books were written
urging a better Sabbath observance, and toward the
close of the reign the Puritan insistence upon it be
gan to tell in a better observance.
As could be supposed the printing press figured
very largely in this transition period. It was char
acteristic of Elizabeth that she attempted to muzzle
the press. As early as 1662 in the Queen's Injunc
tions she ordered that no books or pamphlets be
printed unless six of the Court, or the High Court
Commission, or one of the archbishops, or the bishop
of London, or some other authority passed upon
them. By 1586 three presses only were allowed in
the kingdom, one in London, one at Oxford and an
other at Cambridge. These were so closely under
the eyes of the authorities that they could not be
used by the restless Puritans, so that they had a
movable one of their own which was first set up in

234 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the suburbs of London, fled thence from one place
to another, finally being seized in the northern part
of the kingdom and destroyed. A book or a baUad
or a letter that should stir up sedition would as in
the case of felony cause a traitor's death and loss
of goods.
During these stirring times a series of documents
came out that from their nature and ability and ob
scure origin have always occasioned much interest,
the Martin Marprelate Tracts. These papers,
ribald satires, were attacks upon the hierarchy as
their name points out. Of course they were written
and printed by those in sympathy with ultra reform,
the press issuing them being the Puritan one finally
captured at the north. Several people taken with
the press were subjected to trial and to death.
Finally the heavy blow so long preparing against
England as the strongest Protestant power was de
livered. The year was 1588. Philip, the widower
of one English queen and the rejected suitor of an
other, stated as one reason of his attack that many
Catholics in England favored himself for king and
were also favorable to the Catholic faith and it was
the part of the most Catholic king to defend that
form of religion. Indeed the Armada was a kind of
later crusade, a lineal successor of those against the
Waldenses and the Bohemians. Those in the
Armada and fostering it "considered this suffi
cient to commend the cause, crusade, and army
to the Bishop of Rome and the prayers of
the Catholics, to God and the saints." In the great
fleet, friars and other religious orders went along to

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 236
the number ' of one hundred eighty, having specially
prepared litanies and vast piles of books to distribute,
while the vessels were named for the saints and
tutelary guardians. To aid the expedition with his
spiritual arms the pope issued a more severe bull
against EHzabeth, making her accursed, naming her
a usurper, depriving her of the crown, and absolving
her subjects from their oath of allegiance. When
the matchless daring of the English had battered and
beaten and burned the gigantic ships of the Span
iards, and the tempest of weeks destroyed the fleeing
fragments of the mighty Armada, it is no wonder
the English thought their many special prayers,
deeds of charity and other marks of piety were
divinely answered. The national thanksgiving most
heartily undertaken afforded evidences of special
providences of Heaven. The army assembled at Til
bury found Its patriotic devotion best expressed by
the martial psalms of David, to which they loudly
gave voice as the militant queen passed on horseback
among them. A medal struck off to commemorate
the Armada had this legend in Latin : "Jehovah blew
and they were scattered."
Protestant England no longer stood in dread of
the Catholic powers of Spain. Protestantism now
had a successful champion. The apparition of be
numbing fear raised by the Massacre of St. Barthol
omew, by the assassination of the Prince of Orange
and the hideous killings in the Lowlands, was now
partly laid by this supreme victory. The destruction
of the Armada was a boon to Catholicism as truly as
to Protestantism, for its weapons of warfare hence-

236 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
forth were no more to be those of war but of less
bloody means. With the defeat of the Armada the
severities by the Queen and court against the Jesuits
increased. About two hundred suffered death in this
way ostensibly for treason and the annals of their
sufferings would make a book reaching toward a
match with Fox's "Book of Martyrs." Into their non
conformity conscience had entered as weU as among
the Puritans and Separatists, for before this they
had said in a petition involving three points, that
they shunned the proscribed places of worship
through fear of falling into damnable sin, begging
for pitiful consideration of their calamities, and
third, that no law be made banishing Catholic priests.
It was a certain mitigation of their position that
some of the refugees refused to join in the attack
upon their native country under Philip.
In the last decade of Elizabeth the Established
Church appeared mostly to spend its energies In
other activities than in developing the religious life.
The Queen's spirit grew harsh and peevish, her Im
perious orders going out to prelates and justices
even more savagely than before, so that heretics,
Puritan and Catholic, were continually hunted.
At this time when the church life was so depressed,
the book which is deemed the most able defense of
Anglicanism, Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity," came
out. Hooker was a man of great mental attain
ments, of scholarly tastes, wisely preferring a quiet
parish where he could write his book to the stirring
duties of cleric preferment tendered him. His an
swers to the sectaries harassing the Establishment

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 237
took a broader course than the usual ones being
bandied about. While the Scriptures, he said, are
a standard of doctrine, they are not the same re
garding laws for the government of the church and
commonwealth, which are denominations of the same
society. If the Bible does not specify laws for
church direction, human laws have right and power.
To the Dissenters' claim that too much of the old
ceremonies and rites remained he pleaded for as much
to be left as possible.
The debt of England and the Anglo-Saxon race
to the obscure Puritans of those decades can never
be counted. It was seen by a few statesmen of the
time and since by many great historians. The for
mation of presbyteries went on, the Dissenters
gathering in the fields and woods and private rooms,
spending the whole day in study of the Scriptures
and In prayers. Those clandestine gatherings were
a source of alarm to the Queen and the book of dis
cipline a bogy. Several of the Dissenters had to
seal their devotion to rights and their claims of con
science with their blood. Yet the Queen and most
of the Council were marked by outspoken piety.
As the sixteenth century closed and the seven
teenth came the passing of the sway of Queen Eliza
beth was apparent to herself and to all. To her
view even the situation could not have been full of
encouragement. If during her reign the nation had
forged forward to a foremost place in the world's
progress, it had done so partly in spite of Tudor
tyranny. If great captains had explored widely
and fought bravely, enabling the nation to begin Its

238 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
domination of a great share of the earth's domain,
some of these captains by introducing slavery
brought a stain upon the national name which can
never be wholly washed away. If a Hterary fame
was earned by her great writers so that the Eliza
bethan Age Is named as one of the three or four
literary epochs of all time, there was also a most
shocking condition of morals in the court and among
the people. If at the very close of her life some
cessation of religious controversy gave a rest from
persecution, the religious life had made progress In
spite only of the hideous holocaust that in torrents
of blood sink the reign of Elizabeth to a depth al
most as dark as that of the Bloody Mary. No bet
ter, purer, more loyal Englishmen lived in those times
than many Puritans, Separatists, and Catholics,
who were sent to the death by royal fear and pre
rogative. Though great, Elizabeth was merciless.
There was a streak of fervid piety in that same
Queen. Crucifix, candles and other paraphernalia of
the Catholics were in her private chapel. She com
posed prayers to be read on special occasions. Her
latest words were of a trust in the Savior and con
fidence in his salvation. As her last moments came
and the attendant prelates read prayers, she signed
approval when too late to speak.

CHAPTER XXIII
"The slow moralization of life and society, the enlighten
ment of conscience and its growing empire, the deepening
sense of responsibility for the good order of the world and
the wellbeing of man, the gradual putting away of old wrongs
and foul diseases and blinding superstitions — these are the
great proofs of God in history."  BoHDElf P. BOWSTE.
No great change can be seen in the religious life
when the Tudor dynasty ended and that of Stuart
began. Still dissent put forth strong words for rights
in religion as patriotism did in matters of state.
To the Dissenters held In such repression by Eliza
beth it was a source of hopefulness that James of
Scotland grew up In the different political air of
that kingdom under noble tutors and had been well
instructed in Presbyterlanlsm. Among the delega
tions meeting the new monarch with welcomes were
those from the Established Church and from the
Puritans, the latter bearing the Millenary petition,
so called for the claim that it bore the signatures
of a thousand ministers. This petition asked by Its
delegation certain modifications of the church ritual,
among these to lay aside the cope and surplice, to
omit the sign of the cross in baptism, the examina
tion for replies of Infants, and to bow at the name
of Jesus, and on the other hand asking that com
munion might be administered with the sermon, that
only efficient ministers might be used In the churches
and their marriage be permitted, also that non-resi-
239

240 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
dences should cease and the better observance of the
Sabbath take place. Further, that the custom of
the bishops to hold many places of income by one
means and another should be annulled, also that the
custom of excommunication for trivial reasons and
by low grade ecclesiastics, and the oath ex officio
should be sparingly used.
To these petitioners James had no kindly feeling
since he had been sharply harried by the Scot Pres
byteries and came to his additional honors and power
with the maxim ingrained, "No priest, no king."
Still in deference to the Millenary petition he called
the Hampton Court Conference, to which was named
a large delegation of church clergy headed by the
archbishop of Canterbury, and of the Puritans four
of their learned men. James also came. He was
pedantic and self-confident. He was credited with
saying "that religion was the soul of a kingdom, and
unity the Hfe of religion." The first was wisdom,
the second so construed in that age as to breed in
tolerance. The hierarchy at once saw that the king
was disposed to bear hard on the Dissenters at the
same time that he favored the Establishment. No
fair discussion was allowed, nor was fair investiga
tion made of differences between the two parties.
The King was peremptory, browbeating, giving judg
ment by his own word on issues about which the
greatest minds of the age were uncertain and divided.
The King, fretted by the conduct of the Scot
Presbyterians, declared he feared the Puritans
aimed at setting up Presbyterlanlsm "which
agrees with monarchy as God with the devil."

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 241
He proceeded to an indiscreet assertion before
liberty-loving Englishmen, saying, after hear
ing the points urged by Dissenters, "I will
make them conform, or I will harry them out of the
kingdom, or else worse." A few changes only were
made in the ritual, one not permitting women to
baptize new born infants, not confirming children,
and others of slight moment. Emboldened by the
king's position Bancroft, the archbishop of Canter
bury, pressed uniformity to such a tension that
scores of ministers were silenced, leaving the parishes
vacant while others were cajoled into conformity.
The aid in sustaining the crown which James ex
pected from the Anglicans he also depended on in
Scotland. Before he left that country the tem
poralities of the dioceses which had been transferred
to the crown, were in 1606 returned to the bishops
who entered the Scot Parliament and voted there.
To the attempts of the Presbyterians in assemblies
to restore their form of worship the answer was
threats, displacements, prisons. Another futile con
ference at Hampton Court of leaders from the Scot
Kirk and of the prelates of that country made no
progress toward adjustment, while the Presbyterian
members of it were locked up in prison by the king
and their associates in Scotland remanded to
banishment. As intensely as the English the
Scots dreaded popery, having fear that the
ceremonies and beliefs of that faith still re
tained by the episcopacy invited a return of
that hateful idolatrous worship. All the people
through the universal practice of discussing matters

242 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
of faith and conduct were religious partisans, one
side or the other. The nation had been in ferment
for two generations or more so that with an open
Bible and free discussion they had learned somewhat
of their rights. Though a Scot James failed to
comprehend the persistent traits of his countrymen.
The rehgious Hfe, like forest trees, needs freedom
for spontaneous growth. But to carry his purposes
for setting up the episcopacy he had the High Com
mission Court, that iniquitous Inquisition, set up in
Scotland, which further provoked the Presbyterian
party. The second year after James' succession England
was startled by the famous Gunpowder Plot.
Owing to the restrictions under which the Catholics
lived and worshiped, a little group of their enthu
siasts hatched a purpose to destroy at one fell blow
the royal family, the Parliament, and others as
sembled at the opening session of that body, hoping
in the confusion and loss to set up a government
favorable to their faith. It was a most harebrained
project. Still in their enthusiasm they deemed it a
holy work, directed from Heaven, and before their
most hidden meetings and critical plans they partook
of the holy communion. To accomplish their bale
ful purpose they filled spaces under the Parliament
House with gunpowder, selecting Guy Fawkes, one
of their number, to apply the match at the oppor
tune time. A warning to a Catholic member of
Parliament threw out suspicion, the powder with
Fawkes in the mine revealed the plot, the conspira
tors were discovered and punished with death.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 243
Garnet, a Jesuit, was not indeed raised by papal
action into a saint but was beatified, a single step
before canonization. The bloody wars on the con
tinent between Protestants and Catholics, the kill
ings, the frightful inquisitions, and the Spanish
Armada were held in memory, so it is little wonder
that the brave, thoughtful EngHsh could not help
fearing that they stood upon a throbbing volcano.
Of course severe laws were added to those already
severe. Some were executed as traitors, many re
duced to beggary, and crowds fled oversea. The
pope sent a brief commanding against conformity
saying that none could j oin with heretics in religious
worship without incurring the displeasure of Al
mighty God and hazarding their own salvation. As
James, however, went seeking a CathoHc bride for
the Prince Charles, first in Spain and then in
France, he winked at the laws against the Catholics
which alarmed the people and Parliament.
The noblest monument to the reign of James First
was the new translation of the Bible. To all the
previous renderings many objections were made, and
at the Hampton Court Conference Dr. Reynolds,
one of the four Dissenters present, urged a new trans
lation, to which the king heartily assented. A
group of fifty-four scholars was appointed to this
important work, though but forty-seven were ac
tively engaged In it. This body was divided into
five or six committees to each of which was set a
part of the Bible to be translated, it being specified
that the bishop's Bible of the preceding century
should be the basis of the new rendering. In 1611

244 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
this noble monument of English scholarship, devo
tion and labor was printed. Gradually it super
seded all other editions. Not only was it of theolog
ical Interest In those glowing times, to which Dis
senters and Churchmen went alike for weapons of
controversy, but it was a repository of choice Eng
Hsh style, since Its simple, direct language was greatly
enriched by Greek and Hebrew Idioms, making val
uable addition to our racial speech. So blended are
Its style, teachings and reference in all our literature
that to have its matter abstracted from that litera
ture would be to impoverish it beyond human cal
culation. That active force of contention whether man is
under stern force of necessity or has free will was
during these decades, a burning question among the
people. It was Calvin against Arminius. As the
teachings of Arminius were finding a lodging in
England King James entered the lists against the
great Dutch thinker. To quote some of the King's
epithets will give a glimpse of the spirit which the
times evoked In theological discussion. Arminius
was "an enemy of God," Vorstius, "a wicked
atheist," and Bertlus, having said that saints might
fall from grace, "was worthy of the fire." How
ever, the milder theology of Arminius gradually
found its way among thinkers and prelates, partly
as a revolt from the extreme harshness of Calvin
ism. James sent a learned delegation to the Synod
of Dort in Holland where the doctrine of Arminius
was condemned and he was banished from his pro
fessorship.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 245
Most of the religious life of which sight can be
obtained was the squabble over uniformity. The
learned king was not broad-minded enough to com
prehend that dissent did not mean felony or treason,
nor was the prelacy touched with divine light enough
to see that a noncomformist could be a good Christian
brother. So royalty and prelacy united in harry
ing Dissenters. The ways of royalty and Court,
of hierarchy and Dissenters in public, and of the
universities, are shown to a sickening extent. The
Convocation likewise entered the conflict, decreeing
excommunication against such as should deny that
the Church of England was a true apostolic church,
or say that its ritual services were corrupt, super
stitious or unlawful worship, or affirm that the
Thirty-one Articles were in any part superstitious
or erroneous, or that the hierarchy was repugnant
to the worship of God. The same sentence was to
rest upon any who should separate from the Estab
lished Church to form a new brotherhood.
The discontent became so great under the galling
yoke of the king and hierarchy that many Dissen
ters, both clergy and laity, fled the country, many
going to Holland, where was broader civil and re
ligious liberty, others to the colonies. In Holland
these refugees set up churches mostly of the Pres
byterian model. Also some of the ministers leaving
England went as chaplains to the English regiments
on the continent. The growing claims to great
prerogative put forth by James alarmed many of
the people and a special dissent to his course was
made by a group of the clergy in Lincolnshire. He

246 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
was setting aside the laws, and himself issuing dec
larations designed to have the force of laws. The
nation looked askance upon his kingcraft. Within
three years after his accession ParHament began
taking steps toward religious enlargement. In 1606
a biU was offered In the Commons remonstrating
against the High Commission Court as a menace to
liberty. The King personally headed off this biU.
Parliament followed Parliament in remonstrances
touching one phase or another of religious life.
Positions were defended that were contrary to the
constitution and the growing religious conscious
ness. In the Commons of 1607 a strong speech against
the position of the prelates and of the King was
made which caused James to call both houses before
him, telling them that he did not purpose to govern
by absolute power, yet to dispute what a king might
do was sedition. Further, claiming he had the
power of life and death, he would judge but would
not be judged. In spite of all repression the spirit
of Christianity and liberty was growing in the na
tion, for in the Parliament of 1610 not one voice
but twenty were raised against the High Commis
sion Court, the papists, pluralities, and non-resi
dences. It was also urged that the silenced Puri
tan ministers might be licensed for the good of the
people. The answer of James to these remon
strances was the dissolution of the Parliament.
Though he now determined to govern without a
Parliament, the financial distresses compelled him to
caU another three years later, which, beginning to

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 247
show up the grievances, was quickly dissolved by the
irate King. The ParHament of 1620 put in claims
for justice and rights and for free debate in Parlia
ment, when the enraged James coming to the hall
tore out with his own hand the pages containing the
obnoxious resolutions ; but he did not tear those
principles from the hearts of Englishmen.
Claims for more freedom found voice, not alone
in Parliament, for the young ministers of the state
church and the people at large were discussing mat
ters that troubled the narrow-minded king. On this
account he wrote to the archbishop of Canterbury
to stop this freedom among his clerics of preaching
"unprofitable, unsound, seditious and dangerous doc
trine." He would have these young preachers keep
to simple teachings they could comprehend and their
hearers understand. One of the ministers quoted a
sentiment with approval of a continental commenta
tor on the Bible that it might be lawful in some ex
tremities for a subject to resist a ruler. This act
caused James to throw the preacher into prison and
publicly to burn the ominous book. But it was in
vain. England itself sympathized with Bohemia
and other continental people struggling for rights
and liberty. The only daughter of James, the
Princess Elizabeth, was married to Frederick, the
ruler of the Rhine Palatinate, both these being
heartily In sympathy with the progressive spirit of
freedom sought by so many European peoples.
They were favorably looked upon by the progressive
Dissenters of England, and of them in the next cen
tury came the royal line of the Georges.

248 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
The spirit of religious enlargement even before
the terrible repression of Laud had so many obstacles
in its way that there came a temporary decay In the
religious life of the nation. If one in any walk in
Hfe appeared in earnest, denouncing vice or pro
tecting the Puritans, he was himself denounced as a
Puritan. If he read the Bible instead of falling into
the vices of the times, if he went to church on Sun
day instead of going to the sports on that day, he
was scorned as a precisian and a hypocrite. Yet
in spite of these and other obstacles the better spirit
enlarged by religious ties was steadily working for
better things. Men of genius like Bacon, Hales,
Sandys, and others were aiding progress by their
enlarged views. Parliament was stoutly resisting the
King's unjust claims of prerogative, the religious
Puritans were coalescing with the political Puritans,
the inquiries ordered by the Commons into bribery
in the courts reached far enough to touch and purge
also the ecclesiastical courts. The house of Lords,
having prelates In it, was slower to push ahead either
in church betterment or against royal claims.
Several sects which had their initial existence in
preceding years took at this time more definite form
and greater prominence. They were pleading and
writing for some degree of toleration if only for less
strictness of the King and of the prelates. Dissent
looking toward toleration grew apace. Such pa
triots as opposed the assumptions of the King were
called political Puritans, as those who dissented from
the claims of the hierarchy were called religious
Puritans. There was a trend in the state church

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 249
toward papacy, for the prelates admitted that the
Roman church was a true one, the bishop of Rome
being the first bishop of Christendom. In his later
years James seemed to have leaned heavily toward
the Romanist beliefs. Go as the church prelates
and court would, the more thoughtful of the common
people moved toward Puritanism, and some of the
nobility heartily sympathized with that trend. The
ablest writers of the period were Puritans. The
migration which began peopling America went in
quest of more religious freedom and life.
On March 27, 1624, King James died. A frag
ment of the old paganism, a belief in witchcraft,
persisted to this time and after. During the first
year of James' reign Parliament passed an act mak
ing witchcraft felony. The King studying theology
also dipped into demonology, accepted the existence
of witches, debating why the devil worked more with
aged women than with others. During his reign
many old women suffered death under this accusa
tion. Between 1660-1600 It Is claimed by good au
thority that eight thousand people were burned for
witchcraft. On one day In 1591 thirty-one were
so destroyed. More stringent laws increased the
holocaust so that the estimate down to 1680 is of
seventy thousand victims. While the Independents
had the power under Cromwell, the burning ceased.
That this delusion should persist in New England is
the more strange, since that country was peopled
mostly by highly cultured religious refugees.
Some of the refugees to Holland, finding that their
families were likely to be absorbed by the Dutch,

250 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
concluded, since they longed to retain English speech
and spirit, to seek civil and religious liberty in Amer
ica. By going there they could be loyal English
men, yet worship God according to their religious
insight and conscience. Securing permission to
settle on some of England's possessions in the New
World, though not securing the promise of tolera
tion even there, they determined to go. John Robin
son spent a day with them in fasting and prayer as
they were ready to embark. To him it appeared
that the Established Church would go no farther in
reform, nor the Lutherans farther than the words
of Luther, nor the Calvinists beyond the teachings
of Calvin, progress seeming to have no more promise
through these sects. He besought the ones em
barking "to be ready to receive whatever truth shall
be made known to you from the written word of
God," confident that new truths were to shine forth
from that book for humanity. It was a fair blos
som of Christian truth applied to rights when the
little group in the cabin of the Mayflo-wer subscribed
to the simple declaration "to enact, constitute, and
frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts,
constitutions and offices from time to time, as shall
be thought most meet and convenient for the good
of the colony ; with which we promise all due sub
mission and obedience."

CHAPTER XXIV
The rehgious life of England might seem to have
fair promise of enlargement when Charles First came
to the throne, for he was represented as temperate,
chaste, serious. "He is zealous for God's truth,
diligently frequents and attentively hearkens to
prayers and sermons." Such a marked change in
royalty from the iniquities of his father's court must
have encouraged the truly pious of the land. But
with this fair promise two things soon chilled such
encouragement, for he was married to a French
Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria, whose influence,
brought up as she had been In the atmosphere of ab
solutism practiced in the French court, was against
the parliamentary control of the king, while her
strong devotion to the CathoHc faith gave alarm to
the English. The other thing that alarmed a very
large portion of Charles' subjects was his insistence
upon uniformity. Abbot, the Archbishop of Canter
bury, was tender toward Protestant Dissenters,
which so sharply drew the royal displeasure upon
him that for a season he was suspended from his
official duties.
To the tolerant Abbot in the primacy succeeded
the intolerant Laud. To him and his clergy it
seemed enough if the regular routine of the liturgy
was kept up and the war vigorously pressed against
nonconformity. Repress nonconformity as It might,
the hierarchy with law and power and royalty at its
251

262 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
command could not wholly force conformity. Stout
souls stood out. They saw a trend toward the hate
ful popery, and for themselves felt that they had an
inherent right to worship God according to the light
they possessed. Collier is of the opinion that had
not the rebelhon come on. Laud would no doubt have
converted or crushed the Puritan sect and recovered
his whole province to conformity. To this pitiable
end he seems to have labored to the neglect of proper
clerical matters, for In his reports to the king he
spoke of poor vicarages, small curateships and
churches lying in rubbish. Much dissatisfaction was
felt at the way Laud and others were assuming some
of the papistical rites and doctrines abandoned in
preceding years. Invocation of saints was encour
aged, so was auricular confession, merit of good
works, doctrine of purgatory and others.
Much dissatisfaction arose at the extreme ritualis
tic course of Laud and some of his associate prelates.
The laws were so uncertain that Parliament deter
mined to reform them. Under Laud, the clergy
urged the divine right of the episcopacy, thus making
this claim a powerful aid to the supreme assumptions
of that dynasty. It is no wonder that a Parliament
possessed by a spirit of progress and reform should
be aroused when it saw prelates and King pushing
by word and act toward extreme arbitrary power.
The bill of 1642, excluding the bishops from the
House of Lords, emanating in the Commons and
signed by the King, was a most natural one when it
is remembered that the House of Commons was grow
ing more and more Puritan In its spirit and numbers.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 253
Great statesmen were in that House, far-seeing
legislators and hot-hearted patriots. The Civil War
has been called the war of the episcopacy, since
the Insistence of the hierarchy for power and place
were fuel fed to the fires of patriotism.
The friction between Parliament and encroaching
power represented both by King and prelates had
been deepening as the years had passed since the ac
cession of Charles, and now, although the Parliament
was composed largely of churchmen, the questions at
issue caused an acute situation. Several dissolutions
had taken place when the Parliament, meeting in
1640, passed an act that it could be dissolved only
by Its own action. This was the beginning of the
Long Parliament. Probably that body wanted the
Liturgy retained, but also wanted to be rid of the
bad men in state and church who were leading the
King the wrong ways and the nation to apparent
ruin. Against the position of the King and hier
archy the Parliament was sustained by petitions
pouring in upon it, one of fifteen thousand names
from the people of London, and another of seven hun
dred ministers protesting against the ceremonies of
the church.
In the progress of events. Laud became so obnox
ious to Parliament that the Commons sent to the
House of Lords a bill of impeachment for high
treason. The Scots said he was linked in treasonable
matters with Strafford, Lord Deputy of Ireland, who
was already in the Tower, where Laud was now
placed. Charles tried a conciliatory course, admit
ting that the prelates had overstrained authority, to

264 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
correct which he would join with the Parliament.
ParHament purposed extreme measures, one being to
cut off all the revenues of the Establishment by sup
pressing the deaneries and chapters.
In an unwilHng way the King acceded to some of
the stern demands of ParHament, aUowing a priest
now and then to be put to death, ordering the courts
to enforce the penal laws against priests and Jesuits,
and offering a hundred pounds' reward for the arrest
of a Doctor Smith, the Catholic bishop. As the con
test deepened between Charles and his Parliament,
he was more inclined toward his Catholic subjects
who gave him assurance of sustaining him in return
for some toleration. Thus, the Catholics of Ireland
are said to have offered him, if some toleration was
granted them, an army of five hundred horsemen
and five thousand footmen. He had made one
Catholic Lord High Treasurer, one Secretary
of State, another Chancellor of the Exchequer,
while many of their nobles attended his court.
He also gave places In the army to them, and In
the Civil War they proved some of his most loyal
supporters. Dissent became more and more assertive. The
preachers of rights and freedom called lecturers mul
tiplied In various parts of the country. Often these
men were aided and protected by the gentry.
Prominent families would use them as tutors in their
households to cover their more public work. Great
crowds attended these lectures showing the soul hun
ger of the people. But prelatlcal zeal followed them
sharply being desperate especially if these lecturers

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 255
or men in livings preached against Rome or
Arminius. A spirit was arising called Erastianism, named
after Erastus, a continental writer, who claimed that
in a commonwealth when the magistrate professed
Christianity, offenses against morality and religion
should not be punished by the church powers,
especially by excommunication. At this time in the
Commons the lawyers particularly, led by the pro
found Selden, were mostly Erastians, believing no
church government to be of divine right but of
human conditions.
So much were ceremonies insisted on that the po
sition at the communion table aroused much hard
feeling. To meet the growing spirit of democracy
it had been put In the middle of the church so that
the people could surround it, but Laud insisted that
It must be put at the east end of the raised chancel
where the altar had stood in preceding times and be
fenced in with a rail.
In the neighboring kingdom of Scotland, the hot-
blooded Celts could illy endure the Impositions laid
upon them by the Established Church and the galling
deeds of the Star Chamber. As their pet Calvinism
was proscribed and the communion table set in the
place of the old-time altar, as well as the insistence
for the Book of Prayer, the growing aversion of the
people burst out into mob violence. On the Sunday
when the order was to read the service book in all the
Edinburgh churches, a mob of men and women of
the low classes broke out into personal violence
against the clerics, the dean and bishop, and the

256 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
small stools used to sit on were thrown at the priest's
head. The Scot CouncU did not haste to punish the
rioters of Edinburgh and elsewhere, the assuring
words of the King did not aUay the excitement, while
his purpose to send an army and fleet against the
rebellious city hurried matters toward a revolution.
Finally, In 1638, petitions to the CouncU being in
vain, the Scots took matters into their own hands and
drew up the famous Solemn League and Covenant.
They charged the bishops with betraying their re
ligion, urged that the lecturing preachers be restored
to the places from which they had been driven, and
petitioned relief from the liturgy and canons.
Charles, In response to these things, put In an excuse
for setting the hierarchy over them, and at the same
time threatened the turbulent. This attitude of the
King convinced the Scots that the remedy must be
sought among themselves, so they proceeded to form
a government of their own consisting of four orders,
nobles, barons, burgesses, and ministers. The Cove
nant, an epochal document, was signed by them, bind
ing them to maintain the religion as then professed,
to preserve his majesty's person and to defend them
selves against all persons whomsoever. The Book of
Prayer was renounced as were the governing
canons, the High Commission Court and the Six
Articles of Perth, while they called upon God to wit
ness their loyalty since they took these positions
only in defense of the rights of conscience. They
boldly claimed the right to frame their own religious
polity. So democratic was the plan of the kirk that the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 257
assembly by election was composed of men of aH
ranks, and in this body, partly judicial in its powers,
nobles for immoral crimes might be judged by
peasants. In the freedom of the pulpit they led all
Europe. Of the commissioner sent by Charles to
arrange matters, the Scots demanded the establish
ment of a Parliament and church assembly, declaring
they would sooner renounce their baptism than their
Covenant. Failing in these demands they flew to
arms, blockading the King's troops in the castles of
Edinburgh and Sterling. Charles temporized. He
could not permit such bold repudiation of royal
authority. Offer as he might to grant an assembly
and Parliament on condition that the hierarchy be
recognized and all disturbances cease. It was not sat
isfactory. The assembly the Scots elected com
manded the prelates to appear before it, charging
them with "heresy, simony, perjury, incest, adultery,
fornication and breach of the Sabbath." The
bishops were deposed and also such ministers as did
not accept the Covenant. Sustaining an agent In
London they kept in touch with the nonconformists
of England.
In Ireland, religious affairs were as unsettled as in
Scotland. The Irish were hot-hearted Catholics, the
efforts to win them to Protestantism up to this time
having been in vain. The King soon attempted to
remedy the imperfections of the Established Church,
since under the dissolution of the monasteries and by
other dissolutions, its efficiency had been greatly
lessened. The Catholics thinking that the new King
leaned toward their faith, or would wink at their

258 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
illegal purposes to establish their worship and work,
set up some religious houses in Dublin, the friars ap
pearing in the streets In their peculiar attire and
affronting the mayor and archbishop. By order of
Charles the obnoxious home of these friars was de
molished and their houses in Dublin changed into
Houses of Correction, though some toleration of
them was permitted. But in almost all the country
the vastly more numerous population kept up its own
form of worship. In spite of the King's efforts to
remedy the evils, reports from the archbishop to him
showed a most lamentable condition, for in Dublin the
churches were used for stables, dwelling houses
treated no better, while the vaults of Christ Church
itself were made into tippling rooms by the Catholic
renters, where wine, beer, and tobacco were sold at
the same time that religious services were going on
above. Wentworth, the Lord Deputy, tried to second the
King In his efforts to make things better, but did It
in a way to alienate the Irish still further.
Matters goading the Irish to desperation. In
October, 1641, they broke out into a rebellion, in
which the ferocious spirit of that partly civilized
people found no limit. The avowed purpose was to
blot out the hated English from the island. To this
end, murders, ravaging, outraging females, burning
property, whippings, "in cause of loyalty and re
ligion," went on until Protestants were killed by the
ten thousand with unspeakable barbarity, driven to
the bogs to die of hunger and exposure and harried
by all the means that such an enraged horde could

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 269
invent. The hatred was both religious and racial.
The whole number murdered In this awful massacre
is put by some historians as high as two hundred
thousand but this is doubtless an exaggeration,
though it is certain that the victims were numbered
by the scores of thousands. As the war between
King and Parliament in England came on, Charles
sympathetically directed Ormond, commanding in
Ireland, to conclude a peace advantageous to the na
tives, when it was ordered that the Catholics should
be discharged from taking the oath of supremacy,
giving them the freedom of their religious ritual, a
ministry of their own, schools for their children with
attainders and outlawries made void, and a decree of
oblivion given out. To ensure these favors they
were to hold possession of the forts and cities already
occupied by them.
The people were aroused and alive to the progress
of matters, sending petitions for the Established
Church and against it.

CHAPTER XXV
The Parliament to replace the Convocation and to
organize the revised church to take the place of the
Anglican hierarchy now practically abolished,
planned the famous Westminster Assembly. It was
composed of the delegates from each county to the
number of about one hundred fifty of both divines
and laymen nominated by the Knights of the shires.
This was to be a national synod and met in 1643.
Its members were prelates, Presbyterians, Independ
ents, and members of Parliament, to whom later were
added Scot commissioners.
But the preponderance of members was Presby
terian, who plainly aimed to throw aside the episco
pacy and govern the religion of England by assem
blies, synods and Presbyterian rules. Of course to
this plan there were many objections. The An
glicans could not without a struggle see their elab
orate system overthrown, and finding the current too
strong against them that party withdrew. The In
dependents pleaded for a toleration which would allow
some scope in church organization and government
as well as for the ordination of their ministers, but
such latitude was not the purpose of the Presbyterian
element. That element insisted on uniformity but
the growing spirit of freedom manifested most
strongly in the Assembly by the Independents urged,
that not uniformity, but toleration of different
shades of belief and forms of church government best
260

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 261
met human needs. In despair the Independents de
clared by one of their champions. Burroughs, that if
their congregations could not have liberty they re
solved to suffer or to migrate to some other place in
the world where they could find liberty.
The eyes of the Westminster Assembly were
turned for help toward Scotland Hke those of the
Parliament. Some Scot commissioners were added
to the Assembly, of course holding in their hand the
Solemn League and Covenant. This would be Eng
land's panacea. After some changes of this great
document by the English Assembly it was adopted
for the church government and faith of the three
kingdoms. The Covenant, holding as it did then for
the glory of God, the advancement of Christ's king
dom, the honor and happiness of the King, the public
peace, liberty and safety of the Kingdom, the rights
and privileges of Parliament, for the extermination
of popery and prelacy, superstition, heresy, profane
ness, schism and whatever was contrary to sound
doctrine, stood as the Magna Carta of the religious
Hfe. Its rich fruits are blessing the world to-day.
On Its adoption by the Assembly, the Parliament, in
September, 1643, came In a body to St. Margaret's
Church and with uplifted hands swore to uphold its
provisions. A heart throb of mingled despair and joy was felt
in all this high purpose. The protest against this
Presbyterian dominance was deep. The tolerance
urged by some of the most advanced spirits had not
been accorded. England, though freed from prel
acy, was bound with presbytery. Those advancing

262 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
spirits could not consent to this condition. Presby
tery was about as stoutly insisting on uniformity as
had prelacy. The yoke was too heavy. Conformity
was not a necessity. Dissent was not treason or se
dition. Selden, Milton, and a host of lesser men
wrote, spoke, preached their objections. Many with
drew from th9 Assembly, its sessions, held for about
six years, amounting to above eleven hundred meet
ings, hardly ever had more than about half of Its
original numbers. The fire of its spirit gradually
burned out and leaving as its products the modified
Covenant, the Lesser and the Greater Catechism, it
fell into senility and passed from men's sight.
Parliament vigorously took up the matter of
church reform since church and state then were never
thought as being other than an inseparable unity.
Some of its radical acts ordered the removal from the
churches and open places and their destruction all
monuments deemed of superstition and idolatry, such
as the representations of angels and saints, crucifixes
and holy water fonts, nor must be used any surplice,
copes or other superstitious vestments, while the Sab
bath was to be strictly observed, and to give force to
this last, the King's Book of Sports for Sunday
amusement was to be called in and publicly burned.
Later it was ordered that saints' days, even Christ
mas, Whitsuntide and Easter, should be given up and
other festivals "commonly called holy days," substi
tuting in place of them every other Tuesday as a day
of recreation. It was ordered also that the Book of
Common Prayer be thrown aside, and the Directory,
a liturgy prepared by the Westminster Assembly, be

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 263
published in its place. It was a hearty, bold at
tempt to crowd religion forward by law, and failed
of course. They did not see then that religion must
be a growth in human lives, a direction of judgment,
conscience and free will.
One pasage in the history of the Long Parliament
which has attracted much attention was its treat
ment of Archbishop Laud. After three years of im
prisonment in the Tower he was brought to trial.
His leaning toward popery and disregard of legal
ways joined with his Imperious claims of deference,
almost papal, could not fail of arousing bitter hatred
among honest Englishmen.
It is hard at this distance to understand the heat
of the Puritan element against Laud unless we see
with Macaulay that "of all the prelates of the
Anglican Church, Laud had departed farthest from
the principles of the Reformation, and had drawn
nearest to Rome. . . . Under his direction
every corner of the realm was subjected to a constant
and minute inspection. Every little congregation
of Separatists was tracked out and broken up.
Even the devotion of private families could not escape
the vigUance of his spies." As the House of Lords
hesitated to take action in the case, the Commons
changed the accusation from treason to attainder.
The accusation finally took a three-fold form: first
his efforts to subvert the laws, second to overthrow
the Protestant religion, and third to overthrow the
rights of ParHament. The remarkable prelate was
sentenced. "His great age and feebleness, his influ
ence already lost in the three years of his imprison-

264 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ment might have moved a Puritan Parliament to let
him end his days in harmless living."
Passions ran high in those turbulent times. Pe
titions came up to Parliament to clean out the hier
archy root and branch, as they expressed It, so this
phrase became a popular catch-word with the
Puritan party. Names marking great leaders began
to appear, as Pym, Sir Harry Vane, Hampden and
others. This turbulence must certainly have had the
effect to produce great leaders. The modified
church organization projected by the Assembly and
Parliament proposed to have the congregations elect
laymen as ruling elders, unsettled questions in any
church were to be referred to a group of triers be
yond them, thence If still unsettled to a classls, thence
appeal could be made to a provincial assembly, and
from that to the national synod. All these bodies
were subject to Parliament, since Erastian principles
held sway in that body. To give the laity more voice
in church management was a valuable step forward
in religious Hfe.
As might be foreseen, the Universities created and
sustained by the Church would side with that and
the King against Parliamentary action. Oxford
turned over its massive silver plate to the King for
money to sustain his army, many of the students and
lesser teachers enlisted under his banner, while Cam
bridge, though occupied by a Parliamentary army,
persisted In the same spirit. While thus occupied it
was decided to present the League and Covenant to
the Presidents and Fellows of the various colleges for
signing and to eject such as did not sign. Almost

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 265
a complete change was necessary, but strong, edu
cated men were on hand to take the vacant places
so that no serious lapse in scholarship took place, and
many who were students at this period became the
great men later. As the Parliamentary forces came
into control of Oxford, which had been much Injured
by the King's occupancy as headquarters, similar
steps as those at Cambridge were taken to place the
University in sympathy with the Puritan movement.
The sects shooting up in the prolific times before
had now better chance of growth. The Puritan had
become a Presbyterian and rapidly rose to power.
This Puritan element was largely composed of the
middle classes, the small sturdy farmer, mechanic,
tradesman, the progressive, thinking part of the na
tion, a few of the nobility being associated with them
but holding no commanding place. The rabble fol
lowed the Cavaliers. Each of the two parties had
distinguishing marks. The speech, expression of the
face, clothing, demeanor, all marked the Puritan.
Their hair was cut short, bringing on them the
epithet of Roundheads, while the nobility and
courtiers allowed their hair to grow long and loose.
In Parliament the Presbyterians had steadily risen
in number and power. The stout Long Parliament
was dominated largely by their spirit and weight.
Struggle as they might the Anglicans had to bow to
the Presbyterians. Not all the decisions of the As
sembly were approved by Parliament. Really the
Presbyterians aimed not at liberty but at power.
Calvinism predominated in ParHament as in Assem
bly. The two catechisms put forth, the larger as a

266 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
body of divinity for the ministers, the shorter for
children and lighter use, have guided the teaching of
this denomination to the present. Holding control in
ParHament they passed ordinances with the penalty
of death upon those denying the existence of God, the
Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the truth of the Bible,
the resurrection of the Lord or of salvation in Christ.
To prison must all go permanently who believed such
lesser errors as that all could be saved, that souls go
to purgatory, that the baptism of infants was unlaw
ful or void. The "Power of the Keys" or of ex
communication, they claimed abode by divine ap
pointment in the eldership or presbytery so that
these could suspend from communion and exclude
from the church. London and other parts were
aroused to a fierce heat. Preachers harangued the
people, impelling them in crowds to the Parliament
doors, while theological matters were discussed In
business houses, in the coffee rooms, on the streets, at
the fireside. Physicians dealt out theological issues
with their pills and nostrums. In the lower schools
and in the Universities color was given all teachings
by the religious questions. England and Scotland
became a great theological seminary. As the bishops
refused to ordain those of the parliamentary party a
large committee on recommendation of the Assembly
was appointed by Parliament, any seven of whom
could ordain men, since they believed that bishops
and presbyters were of the same order and that
church government by presbyters was of divine
origin. Milton said in his protest to the Presbyterian
Model, that "New Presbyter was but old priest writ

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 267
large." Much confusion in church services existed.
The Anglican service was not wholly suppressed,
nor that of the Independents, nor Baptists, nor pa
pists. The Independents were led by most able men,
Goodwin, Nye, Bridges, Burroughs, men who, in the
persecutions at home and in the wider opportunities
of the continent, had learned some of the funda
mental principles of toleration. Going to the Bible
for their authority the Independents in common with
all the factions found in it the guide of their polity.
To them the congregation of organized worshipers
was the only authority in church government, since
they recognized no synod, assembly or convocation.
Cromwell and many officers of his magnificent army
became Independents, the spirit of the army being
largely shaped by them, though the Ironsides were
composed of devout men from every shade of faith.
When this faction was in control of the government,
practical toleration existed toward all religionists,
though looking askance toward Catholics and Epis
copalians, all penal laws for religious reasons were
repealed, thus leading in these Christian steps not
only all the sects in England but all the peoples of
Europe. Their service consisted of Scripture read
ing and exposition, prayer, preaching, baptism, com
munion, psalms sung, collections for the poor. They
had pastors, teachers, ruling elders and deacons, rul
ing by admonition, their excommunication being only
exclusion from the communion. The Independent
faction, in power in the army and Parliament, di
rected the arrest of King Charles and pressed the

268 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
steps leading to his confinement, trial and execution.
By this time, 1646, the Baptists had so increased
as to have fifty congregations in London. Their
church government was properly congregational,
their confession of faith Calvinistic, they were in fa
vor of toleration, admitted lay preachers, and would
baptize only grown people. They were especially
successful among the lower, more ignorant classes,
though people of learning and parts joined them.
As in the case of all sectaries these were shamefully
persecuted, mobs broke up their meetings, and threw
their preachers into the rivers and ponds. A learned
churchman proposed to demolish the sect with a book
bearing this peculiar title, "The Dippers Dipt, or the
Anabaptists Duckt, and plunged over Head and
Ears." Through such chinks of spirit and language
come glints of information about that age.
Many indications show the activity of mind in that
period. What is now known as Unltarianism began
to cut a figure. Complaints were made that the
divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit was fre
quently in public called in question. One canon
from the Convocation of 1640 was that no one should
import Unitarian books, or print or dispose of them
under penalty of a call before the implacable Star
Chamber. But men in London were preaching ere
long openly that Jesus was a prophet indeed who
could work miracles but was not God. Like the
Independents and Baptists they were in favor of tol
eration. A preacher, one Best, on being accused of
denying the Trinity, was condemned to death by the
Commons, but on being visited by some divines to hear

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 269
his exact confession of faith, he was discharged as
not being very ultra.
If, in a general way the religious life of England at
that time should be divided Into two factions, the one
of ritualists, the other non-ritualists, there was still a
small intermediate party designated as Latitudina-
rians. Names remembered in the field of ethics and
philosophy were in that party, ChUlIngworth, Lord
Falkland, Hobbes, Lord Herbert of Cherbury.
ChUlIngworth, who had accepted Catholicism and
then passed back again to the Episcopal church, used
his great intellect in favor of the earlier tenets of the
Reformation, the independency of private opinion,
claiming also that the errors of conscientious men do
not forfeit the favor of God. Lord Falkland,
learned, brilliant, a leader in society, the foremost
among the liberal thinkers of the day, had a most
passionate longing for liberty of religious thought.
Hobbes, when he entered the field of religious discus
sion, deemed the state supreme in religious matters,
that the commonwealth should determine the form in
religious matters. Insisted on conformity to which no
resistance should be made and claimed that dogmas
should be the fewest, simplest possible. Lord Her
bert of Cherbury was the founder of English Deism,
who thought that the essential principles of religion
were attainable through innate notions. His creed
would have five sections : "First, that there is a su
preme being ; second, that this being ought to be wor
shiped ; third, that virtue combined with piety is the
chief part of divine worship ; fourth, that men should
repent of their sins and turn from them; fifth, that

270 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
rewards and punishments follow from the justice and
goodness of God both in this Hfe and after it." This
group of men had much to do in teaching toleration
to the nation.
Allied it might seem to these Latitudinarlan views
were the opinions of a faction that took reason, they
said, as their guide, repudiating compulsory service in
religion and royalty in politics. Their democratic
teachings found a quick lodgment in the Parliamen
tary army, for this asked equality, voluntary service
in war, enlargement of franchise, and freedom of con
science. These were the Levelers. Many officers
and privates fell in with their ideas, becoming bitter
against the king and demanding a Commonwealth.
These things troubled Cromwell and other leaders
since such demands were too advanced for the Eng
land of that period. But the army had begun to
show the democratic spirit in a manner not to be
slighted. Goaded to Intensity by the King's du
plicity, and by the Presbyterian Parliament, the
army sent an urgent petition to that body that they
wanted liberty of conscience and the arrears of their
pay, saying that as volunteers they had in the civil
war been fighting for the liberties of the nation and
were determined to have them. Angry with these
petitioners Parliament would have thrown them Into
the Tower, but thought better of it when the general
came before them with similar demands. The Parlia
ment ordered the army to be disbanded. Cromwell,
deemed by them the leading spirit, they tried to ar
rest, but he escaped from the city to the army. Then
the army seized the captive king, marched toward

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 271
London, demanding of the frightened Parliament and
the city the rights of conscience, liberty, and encour
agement. Between the city that objected to these de
mands and the imperious army. Parliament stood in
a difficult position. Again, after some delay and con
ferences the army came into London, bringing those
fugitive members of Parliament expelled for sympa
thy with the demands of the army, purged the Com
mons of the malcontents and set up the party with
them as the real Parliament. This fragment was
the famous Rump Parliament. The army now in
vested with authority proposed that all civil power
be taken from the bishops, the Book of Common
Prayer be given up, the League and Covenant not
to be enforced, a mighty stride toward toleration.
But this advanced position England in general was
not yet prepared to adopt. Suffering generations
must pass before their full acceptance.

CHAPTER XXVI
At the beginning of the CivU War the regiments
sent against Charles by the Parliament were poorly
prepared either in their character or drill to meet
the spirited Cavaliers of the King. Cromwell com
plained that they were poor tapsters and serving men
out of a place. With his profound military insight,
seeing this lack while yet a colonel, he determined to
form his regiment in such a manner as to meet the
enemy on even ground. Into his regiment of a thou
sand men he would enlist only freeholders or their
sons, men fearing God, professing godliness, and who
would deem it a duty to execute justice upon their
enemies. Having such men to start with who divided
their time in camp between military duties and
prayer and singing psalms, and who charged upon
their enemies calling upon God while slaying them,
Cromwell could not fail of success, and his men
doubly clad In cuirasses and religious fervor could
well be dubbed Ironsides. Religious enthusiasm was
successfully pitted against blue blood and personal
bravery. With this new model the army greatly
differed from the royal army. Give orders against
excesses as he might and infiict punishment as he did
against plundering, Charles could not keep his needy
soldiers from robbing and devastating the country in
which they were operating. In addition to its higher
religious spirit the Parliamentary army was better
paid than the Royalists, since great rich London was
272

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 273
financially with the Parliament as well as religiously.
With all the hot partisanship the Parliamentary
army was kept well in hand. Fairfax was gentle-
hearted and Cromwell was a remorseless disciplina
rian. When at Truro Fairfax captured six thousand
prisoners, he sent them to their homes, giving to each
man twenty shillings to pay his way, nor would he
permit the poor fellows to be insulted. On the other
hand, Montrose, at Kilsyth, taking that number of
Covenanters put them to the sword to be met with
reprisals when the Covenanters captured Royalists.
What few Presbyterian ministers could be induced
to leave their cosy parishes and act as chaplains in
the Parliamentary regiments were pious aids in deep
ening the religious fervor of the Ironsides. Little
impiety or disorder took place, no swearing or drink
ing being allowed. Still Cromwell and other leaders
taught that in certain great exigencies men called to
be the leaders were released by that call from the
common rules of morality so that they were at liberty
to deceive and to prevaricate. This and other delu
sions had come down to that time as the fateful lega
cies of a darker past. An imperfect growth of moral
grandeur made possible the Ironsides and the Com
monwealth. If Puritan austerity lessened the joy
and lightness of preceding years there was a gain in
manners, in manhood and womanhood. This was
especially to be seen in the home life. Green saying:
"Home, as we conceive it was a creation of the Puri
tans." Wife and children had come into social and
religious consideration like the husband.
There was need and room for improvement in the

274 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
spirit and manners of the people. The merciless
punishments inflicted, the brutal mob violence, the hor
rors of the prisons, the bloodthirsty Jeffreys at the
Great Assize, and the judicial severity of lower legal
sinners, the massacres of prisoners of war, the sym
pathy for these brutalities frequently shown by the
clergy high in culture and position now shock the
reader, grown gentler, let us hope, through centuries
of civilization and Christian teaching. People were
thrust into the crowded places of the prisons where
sick and dying were subjected to brutalities that were
unspeakable with a century and a half to pass before
Howard would obtain some mitigation of their hor
rors. As the Irish aiding Charles against Parlia
ment were captured in England no quarters were
granted them, the sailors being tied back to back and
thrown Into the sea. But their atrocities upon the
harmless inhabitants of England had been of the most
damnable character.
As in preceding times the extreme coarseness of
sports was most shocking. Bear baiting, when one of
those poor captive animals was chained loosely to a
post and then great dogs let loose upon him, was most
popular, for crowds of people seated around the pit
would applaud each poor brute in turn. In these
and kindred brutalities the scenes on a small scale of
the old Roman circus were renewed, and it was
against such things and their debasing powers that
for one thing Puritanism put in its protest of influ
ence and law.
Along such displays of a brutal spirit a better one
was growing up, humane, prayerful, rising. The

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 275
Parliamentaries whose watchwords were "Law, Re
ligion, Liberty," were certain that they were doing
God's work, common soldiers and others were dis
cussing matters of high moral import while fighting
the country's battles, and Parliament itself was
freely giving money to relieve those oppressed by
sieges and devastations, believing that it conducted a
struggle for pure religion, piety and the glory of God.
That body, as the King's efforts to introduce foreign
soldiers to help him were thwarted, saw the hand of
God in aiding them to defeat those plans. Milton,
who was "church-outed by the prelates," retiring to
his verse and study, deemed the vocation of England
was to show other peoples how to subdue avarice and
ambition and submit to the loss of riches. As a meet
ing of the principal officers of the army was held at
Windsor Castle to consider the issues before them,
they spent one whole day in prayer and conference,
Cromwell exhorting them to consider fully their ac
tions and ways as private Christians. Nor was the
King slow in his appeals and protestations to the peo
ple in claiming the righteousness of his cause, not
wholly it can be hoped as a foil to the devoutness of
the other party but as a need in the dimness of the
royal vision. The Cavaliers saw the nation's best
interests and their own in royalty, the Parliamenta
rians, in civil liberty. Neither party were fanatics
but patriots. Women also aided in raising means to
carry on the struggle, those In London from the lowly
ranks offering to Parliament the little they had to
give, silver thimbles, bodkins, spoons. Nor was the
King without those women who freely gave their bus-

276 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
bands and sons to fight his battles and their wealth
to sustain his cause. Woman's ministries to the
wounded and suffering were constantly put forth
without reference to which side the suffering be
longed, thus antedating by two hundred years Flor
ence Nightingale and the Red Cross. The soldiers
of the Parliamentary army, on their return to civil
life, were noted for their correct and industrious lives,
Cromwell declaring that those who pray and preach
best fight best.
From the start the differences between Charles
First and his Parliament hinged upon matters of
both state and church. The deepening antagonism
that was to lead the civil war was manifest in those
earlier Parliaments of Charles which he had peremp
torily dissolved. Once the Long Parliament had de
clared itself safe from dissolution, the antagonism
went forward to disruption with rapid steps. Laud
for a while after being sent to the Tower filled church
places with those devoted to the Establishment, and
on remonstrance of the Parliament, the King ordered
him to appoint only such as he should nominate, or
if the Parliament objected, to leave the place vacant,
thus letting the income lapse to the crown. Parlia
ment threw itself into the path of both king and prel
ate by ordering that the archbishop, before his trial
should not fill any benefice but with the approval of
both Houses.
The final disruption coming when the King in
person went to the House of Commons to arrest Pym
and Hampden with the remainder of the famous Five,
it was on an assertion of rights that Parliament and

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 277
the nation stood. The hand of Charles was violating
the earlier law of rights. Even then Parliament was
loyal. It appealed to God's all-seeing eye for Its sin
cerity of purpose to preserve the King and public
peace. It placed itself in the line of encouraging
piety, praying that God would protect the fleeing
King. So much was the church Involved In the na
tional weal that the civil war has been called the War
of the Episcopacy. With the fear which Parliament
had of the hierarchy was coupled the dread of popery
and of Armlnianism. It was a strange medley.
Calvinism pushed hard against Armlnianism, fear
against the papists, patriotism against despotism,
toleration against hierarchy. Parliament had offered
to conclude peace on condition that the King should
accept the League and Covenant also abolishing the
hierarchy, confirm the Westminster Assembly and
a settlement of religion as Parliament should agree.
Further he was to abjure the papists, compel their
children to be educated in Protestant schools, insist
on a better observance of the Sabbath and better
preaching, and abolish pluralities and non-residence.
This was much more than the headstrong and dis
tracted Charles could concede.
When all efforts at settlement failed and Parlia
ment took the trial of the King In hand, the claim
was put forth that he was guilty of the bloodshed in
the civil war, a rough justice assumed by the Parlia
ment in place of that reference to the Judgment Day
often deemed best in momentous issues. As his execu
tion approached he showed a devout reliance upon the
Heavenly Father being wisely and piously aided by

278 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Joxon, Bishop of London. His last hours were spent
in quiet devotion.
The execution of Charles First in 1649 has sent its
fertUe causes of discussion and dissension down
through the history of England. Roughly divided
into parties these have always been distinguished by
the religious issues of the times, conservative or lib
eral, narrow or broad. A people with religious life
so deeply inherent would surely carry its faith into
politics, into home life, Into business life, everywhere.
In a country, too, of monarchical principles reaching
back hundreds of years there would necessarily be a
blending of royalty and faith. Hence sympathy for
the suffering, a prominent trait In the Anglo-Saxon
spirit, was aroused as the King, attacked, driven from
the throne and imprisoned, was tried and beheaded.
As Charles passed, the nation, yet unable to com
prehend government by a Parliament alone, must find
another ruler and one stood forth, a gigantic figure in
man's activities. Oliver Cromwell, partly a product of
his era and partly making that great era, had already
before the King's death risen to portentous propor
tions. He had already shown his great genius for
organization in the renewed world and in the Iron
sides, his generalship on many battlefields and his ad
ministrative abilities amidst the conflicting elements
of the times. He was the guiding spirit of the in
sistent, thinking, victorious army. He took position
among the faction of Independents.
Standing In this position he was in opposition to
many things the Presbyterians wanted in ParHament
and elsewhere. Presbyterlanlsm was now the Estab-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 279
lished Church. Puritanism was mostly passing into
Presbyterlanlsm, for the Puritan movement was split
into many forms of belief and practice so that the
Presbyterians only held a leading place among many
factions. The House of Commons had been dom
inated by them and the Upper House gave them many
sympathizers. The associations of ministers for mu
tual improvement persisted about the country in spite
of the opposition to them by the authorities causing
more liberal views. Not only so among the ministers,
but a softer spirit was surely awakening among the
people at large, dawning as it did upon them that the
surpliced Anglican might have beneath his rich vest
ments a high purpose to bring forward the kingdom
of God, that the austere Puritan could have a glow
ing heart under his somber garments, that the push
ing Independents would not bring down the whole fab
ric of religion in hopeless fragments to the ground,
that the Baptists even through deep waters were
leading men to a higher life, and it was barely pos
sible that under the despised mummery of papist cere
monies, some of these people were pious and exalted
in their lives.
In Scotland, the Presbyterians, after their breth
ren In England had been crowded from Parliament
and their cause thrust into the background before the
aggressive Independents, were ready to take up arms
in behalf of the Stuart dynasty. But they com
pelled the young Charles as he came among them to
make war upon the Commonwealth, to sign the Cove
nant, listen to their long sermons and give up his
excesses much to his disgust. The dispersal of his

280 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
forces at the Worcester fight blasted their hopes and
ruined their plans. StiU the labors of the Presby
terian ministers were valuable in both kingdoms,
visiting their parishioners, teaching and catechizing
the chUdren, thus helping knowledge and a better
civilization. Another sect exerting a deep influence in religious
matters, the Quakers, arose in those prolific times.
Like the adherents of so many great religious move
ments the Quakers point to a certain man as their
originator and leader, George Fox. He felt called
by the spirit of God to separate himself from the
people, so retiring to the fields and woods, brooding
over the religious life, and taking the Bible as his
only book, he set up as a religious teacher in 1647
about Ducklnfield and Manchester, preaching that
"people should receive the Inward divine teachings
of the Lord and take that for their rule." He
formed a notion to address the people with the pro
noun thou and thee, v/ould not remove his hat to
any one, nor bow the knee to magistrates, nor call
any man on earth master, nor use oaths. Insisting
on these things he soon became troublesome to min
isters and congregations, interrupting church serv
ices, and claiming that the Bible was superseded by
the direct communication of the Spirit. He and his
followers would speak In public only when moved to
do so by the Spirit when they would defy laws, senti
ments and orderly manners by their peremptory re
bukes and warnings at all times and In all places.
Fox and his converts were mobbed, put into jail and
otherwise punished, only when freed, to take up their

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 281
excesses again, praying for their persecutors, and
some of them in their fanatic spirit even running
naked through the streets and into the churches.
From some use of this word in the Scriptures they
called themselves Friends, but by the rabble were
dubbed Quakers, presumably for shaking in person
when delivering their heated messages. In spite of
their extravagances they Increased, formed congre
gations, buUt meeting houses without steeples,
pleaded for toleration, set their women to preach
ing, and great numbers became exemplary in conduct
and piety. The mob violence and persecutions were
appalling yet they received the abuse and suffering
in the spirit ascribed to the Savior as sheep dumb
before their shearers. By 1654 Fox had organized
a company of sixty traveling preachers, by the end
of the century there were sixty thousand Quakers
in England, but the rapid progress of the sect di
minished after the death of their remarkable founder.
Along these years the hated Catholics were sub
jected to a variety of experiences. The administra
tion of affairs conducted In mildness during the Com
monwealth somewhat shielded them as it did other
Dissenters. The law banishing them twenty miles
from London was not strictly enforced. They had
been required to take an oath declaring that the
church of Rome was not the true church, that there
was no transubstantiatlon, no purgatory, that no
worship ought to be paid to the host, to images or
the crucifix, that salvation was not merited by good
works, and they were forbidden to go to the mass.
They were to rejecj- the claims of the pope to depose

282 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
rulers, to free people from oaths to magistrates, or
to any assumption of authority In the British nation.
One refusing to take such a comprehensive oath had
two-thirds of his estate confiscated to the use of the
state, but that those people could be loyal to their
sovereign is shown by their secreting the fugitive
Prince Charles in his famous flight from the battle
field of Worcester though great rewards were set
upon his head.
Dissent steadily increasing gave despair to the
Presbyterian State Church as it had to the Angli
can. This despair was the hope of men with hot
hearts and clear vision. The Baptists, though Crom
well dismissed some of his officers for their beliefs,
grew in numbers and influence, for one of their
pamphlets written in remonstrance to this act of
the Protector declared they were numerous every
where in towns, provinces, islands, navies, armies,
and even in the court.
The Jews, hated about as intensely as were the
papists, though for different reasons, were now per
mitted under great restrictions to settle in England.
Owing to the constant appeal of the Puritans to
the Old Testament, there may have been a bond of
sympathy between the two sects. Later the Jews
with their acute business ability came in great num
bers, mostly Spanish and Portuguese from Amster
dam, to whom Charles Second put himself under
great obligation for money borrowed of them, and
in 1662 they set up a synagogue In London.
The Anglicans now standing as dissenters gave
the Puritan Parliament and Cromwell no end

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 283
of trouble. The Episcopalians stood stoutly by
Charles and after his death were forever intriguing
for the return of Prince Charles. Lest the whole
bench of bishops should die, as they were growing
old and their numbers were thinning, thus losing to
the Anglican body the apostolic succession, steps
were taken to consecrate some younger men who
could pass down the mysterious power of ordination.
To make this plan effective they recognized the power
of the absent prince as king and had each province
assemble in council or otherwise and consecrate fit
persons for the vacant sees to be ratified later by
the king. As Charles Second came to England the
Anglican service was at once set up in the palace
of Whitehall, it being taken for granted that the
old Parliamentary establishment of the Anglican
church was the only law in the matter. Everywhere
in churches and in Parliament the Liturgy was re
stored. The clergy flocked to the court seeking res
toration to their places taken from them during the
Commonwealth.

CHAPTER XXVII
It was fortunate for English life that at that time
one of the grandest men the earth ever produced
was the leading and directing spirit. As the Anglo-
Saxon race climbs up to Cromwell's ideals and
spirit, reaching the full fruit of his planting, more
and more will his rich legacies be appreciated. His
steps and those forward ones taken under his im
pulses were only beginnings, yet beginnings that have
never been retraced, keeping steadily on in spite
of any attempts to block progress to nobler things.
That magnificent army of Ironsides, the enlarging
commercial spirit of London, and the country full
of broadening views, the Bible in the hands of the
common people, were combining with other things
to bring toleration. As Cromwell was embarking for
Ireland for that terrible campaign best remembered
by the appalling massacre of Drogheda, but which
vanquished and settled the turbulence there for a
generation, he sent a letter to Parliament recom
mending the removal of all penal laws relating to
religion, with which request Fairfax and other of
ficers in council joined. Yet this was but a partial
step. The Catholics were not to have its favors.
To set up prelacy was not In its purpose. But con
science was to have more freedom. This law recom
mended was passed. Later the stern laws of Eliza
beth's time against nonconformity were repealed, but
it was enacted that all should attend divine service

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 285
somewhere. As Protector Cromwell tried to recon-
cUe the Presbyterians and Independents by having
them united in committees for examining candidates
for the ministry, allowing the former to hold their
assemblies and ordain ministers according to the
Directory. Richard Baxter by his preaching and
writing was a leading spirit In reconciling the lead
ing sects. In France and Germany Protestantism
was fighting for Its very Hfe ; in Holland the findings
of the synod of Dort were rigorously enforced ; while
in Sweden, Norway and Denmark only Lutheranism
was permitted. And even In England there was
found an extreme wing of the Presbyterian party
which regarded toleration but soul murder.
A strong champion for toleration was the able,
Independent divine. Dr. John Owen, whose books,
one written in 1647, another twenty years later, had
a profound Influence in pushing forward public
opinion. With Owen's pen John Milton's was also
enlisted, these tall men being aided by a host of lesser
writers. What might be termed a school of writers
arose, among whom the Latltudinarians, Chilling-
worth, TlUotson, Jeremy Taylor and others appear,
whose writings and words deeply moved the growing
thought of the time toward broader views. Not
blind bigotry but questioning enlightenment was the
issue. To doubt, to search, to decide, were the steps
taken by many to the detriment of clericalism, but
for the good of the race. Public sentiment was now
sweeping beyond the projects of Pym, Hampden and
Vane, and a large hope was gaining ground that the
kingdom of England might become the kingdom of

286 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
God. Theories were passing into action. A prog
ress hard to define but strong and deep was bring
ing forward a better civilization, better laws, nobler
literature, more tolerant religion. The middle of
the century saw the end of religious wars. Out of
those years of turmoil when Puritan excesses of dress,
speech, manners, looks, were made the subject of
satire and buffoonery, came a people with less im
piety than at any time from the beginning of the
Reformation. Profanity was checked, so were
drunkenness and foulness, bankruptcy was hardly
known for twenty years, not a degrading play was
enacted in London. Sunday was rigidly observed,
the ministry was active in preaching and catechizing.
After the Barebones ParHament resigned In 1653
Cromwell and his officers struck out a plan consist
ing of forty-two articles for the government of the
three kingdoms. In this plan it was declared that
the Christian religion contained in the Scriptures
should be held as the public profession of the realm,
that none should be compelled to conform to public
religion by penalties or otherwise, that all professing
faith in God by Jesus Christ, no matter how much
they differed, should be protected in their faith and
in the exercise of their religion. But this declared
toleration did not extend to popery or to prelacy.
Few men have so profoundly Impressed their age
as did Cromwell. His was a time of change when
the mightiest national and racial forces were active
and the nation plastic, when one, a born leader of
men whose grandeur of spirit and work it has taken
two centuries to comprehend, was brought to the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 287
front by the movement of what has been rated as
the blind forces of progress, but which now, more
than ever before are seen to have been greatly the
guidance under human limitations of an over-ruling
Providence. Cromwell grew up among a community
of Puritans, early passed through a season of vivid
religious experience, coming out of that period of
spiritual and mental anxiety with the indwelling
presence of God recognized by him. Under this
divine light he was ever afterward a man to do what
he deemed to be his duty. He was the man of whom
Macaulay says, after the Restoration, "Those who
had fled before him were forced to content themselves
with the miserable satisfaction of digging up, hang
ing, quartering and burying the remains of the
greatest prince that has ever ruled England."
In those years of unrest steps were taken for the
good of Wales. In 1649 an act was passed to aid
in giving religious instruction to that country. The
people lacked Bibles and catechisms. Many of the
clergy were of scandalous character, idle and igno
rant. The schoolmasters were as low as the clerics.
To redress these grievances was the purpose of Par
liament. A commission having the matter in hand
soon had a hundred preachers supplying the churches
that had been neglected or deserted by the previous
clergy. Preaching three or four times a week was
set up in all considerable towns, and three hundred
parishes were by an itinerant system furnished with
ministers. Even then for lack of clergy laymen
gifted and educated were set at work.
The Scots never liked the Commonwealth. The

288 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
iU attempts at reconciliation with the Dissenters,
the insistence of the Covenant, and that a Stuart
should be their king, the disastrous wars with Crom
well, the defeats of Dunbar and Worcester, the stern
hand of the Lord Protector, had all sunk deep into
the heart of the Scot. But the Scots were pious.
The Puritan flame burned deeper here than In Eng
land. Scotland wanted religious freedom while Eng
land strove first for political liberty. Among the
Scots noble laymen were often leaders in this high
religious spirit. Schools were set up whose elevat
ing influence was perpetuated most nobly through
succeeding generations. Dislike the Commonwealth
and hate Cromwell as they would, they were not blind
to the good order and higher religious condition of
that rule. Remonstrant and Resolutioner alike
sought "to purge and plant the church." The Scot
clergy themselves, though calling Cromwell a usurper,
admitted that at no other time did Christ's gospel
so flourish In Scotland, the bitter waters, they said,
being sweetened by the Lord's remarkable blessing
upon the labors of his servants.
When the army of the hated usurper was directing
the mUitary and civil affairs of Scotland, "justice
was carefully administered, and vice was suppressed
and punished, there was a great appearance of de
votion, the Sabbath was observed with uncommon
strictness, none might walk the streets at time of
service or frequent public houses, the evenings of the
Lord's day were spent in catechizing their children,
singing psalms and other acts of devotion, so much
that an acquaintance with the principles of religion

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 289
and the gift of prayer increased prodigiously among
the common people."
The two great Universities were found to be nests
of discontent and of plots for the return of the
Stuart line. The vice-chancellor of Oxford and the
heads of the colleges were displaced, Cromwell was
made chancellor, the Presbyterians gradually being
replaced by the more loyal Independents. In the
Universities, as in the parishes, drunkenness, pro
fanity, gaming and many kinds of immorality had
found their place, which Cromwell was determined
to correct. Preaching was increased in the colleges,
on Sundays three or four sermons were given in each
church, on other days lecturers urged the claims of
the gospel so that in the universities, as in Ireland,
both education and religion were revived. That cul
ture during those years was of a high order was
shown by the many great men of the generation now
educated. As many degrees in divinity were given
as in all other professions. On the Restoration the
expelled heads of the colleges, the fellows and others,
sought and gained their former places.
The sympathies and outlook of Cromwell and
England were at this time wider than the island.
His strong arm reached across the channel to aid
the continental Protestants. The Duke of Savoy, a
subservient son of popery, determined that those
of his subjects who had long departed from the
faith of Rome should be compelled to conform to
the ways of that hierarchy. To this end he sent
troops to drive out from their Piedmont valleys those
heretics and to kill any that remained. Such as

290 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
escaped the sword fled to the mountains suffering
with hunger and cold. They appealed to Cromwell.
He had a collection of money taken for them in Eng
land by which more than thirty thousand pounds
were obtained, and in 1656 a time of fasting and
prayer was appointed. Some of the Protestants of
other countries also helped them. CromweU sent an
agent to the Duke of Savoy saying in a strong mes
sage that he not only pitied those sufferers but that
he should exert himself to deliver them. The pope
and papist growled but the persecutions ceased. The
discreet Duke of Savoy heeded the words of the stern
Protector and restored the fugitives to their homes.
Deeming that the pope incited this bloody persecu
tion, Cromwell threatened that if necessary his can
non should be heard at Rome. The Huguenots, those
French Protestants, had raised a temporary tumult
at Nismes, but though submitting to the laws the
French Court was determined to ruin them. On
their appealing to Cromwell his protest met a sud
den response of favor from Mazarin, the French min
ister, who was said to be more afraid of Cromwell
than of the devil. Cromwell suggested a great
council of all the Protestant powers of Europe to
stand opposed to the Jesuits in their world-wide
purpose of overthrowing the results of the Reforma
tion. But the death of Cromwell stopped what might
have been a magnificent instrument for the defense
of truth and for its widening influence.
A change was manifest in the character of the
literature during the Commonwealth. It became
purer. The Puritan spirit touched writers so that

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 291
many totally escaped the grossness of preceding
times. The style also became more direct and
simple. Cromwell encouraged letters. Free
thinkers, royalists, Anglican writers, were protected
in their literary activities. Joseph Hall, Bishop of
Norwich, wrote in a style so pure that he was called
the Seneca of England. Richard Baxter's "Saints'
Everlasting Rest," and Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Liv
ing and Dying," both written in this period are
classics to-day in the religious life. The strong
works of Barrow, of StlUIngfleet, and of TlUotson
have also been read by pious souls to this day. Cud-
worth, a free thinker, wrote his Intellectual System
in the quiet of the Protector's toleration. It is said
that Hobbes writing the famed Leviathan was safer
with the Puritans than among his friends, the exiles
of the Royalist faction. As passing time blotted
Dryden's record, he himself was pure in life and
taste. Baxter also later before the infamous Jeff
reys was addressed by that monstrosity: "Richard,
thou art an old knave, thou hast written books
enough to load a cart, and every book was as full of
sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace of
God I'll look after thee." So Jeffreys did, cast
ing the strenuous preacher and virile writer into
prison. The lighter literature, however, stands in
muddy contrast to the nobler product of the pure
writers. Verses of love and romance were low and
impure. The coming of Charles Second opened the
floodgates of this class of literature till plays and
theaters became so dark that sober people left them.

CHAPTER XXVIII
With the end of the Commonwealth, militant Puri
tanism may be said to close. Even CromweU com
mitted to this militancy seems in his last days to
have acknowledged the impossibUity to reform re
ligion by law and arms. Not prejudice against
those grander steps forward can hide the vast good
done during the distinctively Puritanic period. To
bring the teachings of the Bible into actual practice
in men's lives takes time and the deep changes which
come through enlightenment and willing acceptance
of those teachings. Like all reformers the Puritans
felt they had a distinct call from Heaven and if it
is said they did their work imperfectly such is the
doom of all human endeavor. That justice should
be done on earth even the terrible Ironsides going
into battle singing psalms and having for their bat
tle cry, "Religion," or "The Lord of Hosts," saw
to be the purpose of their pikepush and sword-
play. The steady character of the race was ap
parent in those years.'
Prince Charles, an exile with the Stuart Court in
France, seeking the throne from which the Puritan
movement had thrust his family, adopted the Cath
olic worship after the disastrous campaign in Scot
land and at Worcester. His subterfuge of signing
the Scot Covenant, a Stuart duplicity, was now ap
parent. As the intrigues that led to the Restora
tion were going on he pledged his word as a king
292

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 293
that no one should be disturbed for his religion, full
liberty being allowed tender consciences. It trans
pired, however, that the new King was but lightly
interested In religion, that his scheme of toleration
meant to include Catholics, a step as impossible to
Anglican as to Dissenter. But Charles really
laughed at all religion, even his secret relation to the
papists sitting lightly on him.
The efforts of both Charles and James to grant
toleration, by that to include the papists, was
thwarted, now by court influence under Clarendon,
now through the determined opposition of the Angli
can prelates. Even the Dissenters, seeing the pur
pose of the King, charily accepted any of his con
cessions. Parliament ordered the hangman to burn
the League and Covenant, together with the acts,
ordinances, engagements and other laws made under
the Commonwealth. The House of Commons voted
that no bill of toleration should be brought to them.
Some of the prelates In their zeal became hunters of
the heretics. Bishop Gunning, at one time finding
the doors fastened against him, ordered the constable
to beat them down with a sledge. Says a writer,
"The madness of the time prevailed against all rea
son." Not all the prelates adopted the dragooning
spirit, some mercifully keeping in the background.
After the great Clarendon fell, five men were chosen
for a council of state with which Charles purposed
without the aid of parliaments to govern the king
dom. A word from the initial letters of these men's
names now came into use. Cabal, and it is in use
to-day. Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington,

294 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Lauderdale, are by this word immortalized. Clif
ford was an open papist, Ashley a concealed one,
Buckingham an atheist and debauchee, Arlington a
deist, and Lauderdale irreligious. With such a
group of men Charles was governing Christian Eng
land. The Convocation not meeting the wishes of
the King for a large subsidy or gift, deciding in
stead to have their benefices taxed like the temporal
property, fell under royal displeasure, was seldom
called to meet and when called only met for the sake
of form. Attempting to set up toleration by royal
edict, since the Parliament was opposed to it, Charles
was persuaded by the hierarchy that only schism with
countless evils would come with this attempt and
stopped in his purpose for the time being so that
uniformity was remorselessly pressed. The Presby
terians, before representing the Established Church,
now found themselves reduced from the persecutors
to the persecuted. If ministers cried out against
the oppressive laws and the course of the prelates
they were shut up in the prisons. If they wrote in
favor of the Covenant and of Presbyterlanlsm they
were fined and bundled into prison and kept long in
bonds. Spies and informers dogged the suspected
ones. The oath of these informers thus let loose was
enough without other witnesses for a jury to convict
a Dissenter. Those having held cures during the
Commonwealth were compelled if possible to refund
the income of the benefices during their occupancy.
Whole families, helpless mothers and children, were
turned out into a cold world. When in the Com
monwealth time curates were ejected to give place

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 295
to these Presbyterians now in turn rejected, they
were allowed one-fifth of their former income, but now
no such merciful provision was granted.
The loathsome prisons made short work of those
confined in them. The loathsomeness of the prisons
in previous generations was not yet corrected. A
limited charity fed some of these ministers and their
families. Two thousand were said to have been de
prived. Other professions were filled by some of
these cultured men while a few became chaplains or
teachers in private families. Their opposition was
cried out to be sedition. Oaths were persistently
tendered them. Allegiance, non-resistance, repudia
tion of the covenant, were demanded to which some
yielded but many refused. To the praise of Charles
Second it may be said that his voluptuous nature
usually recoiled from these severe ways. When com
plaint was made to him that nonconformists were in
creasing he responded that the clergy were chiefly
to blame, for had they lived good lives, gone about
their parishes, and taken pains to convince the non
conformists of their mistakes, the nation might have
escaped those troubles.
Parliament was now moved by a spirit similar to
that of the hierarchy. It declared against the sedi
tious conventicles, for in its views Dissenters, being
opposed to the laws setting up an established church,
were seditious, contriving Insurrection. The old law
of Elizabeth against conventicles was revived, by
which all persons peremptorily refusing to go to
church must suffer banishment and if they returned
to England were condemned to death. The noncon-

296 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
formlst ministers usually tried to keep within the
law, preaching only to famUIes to which no more
than four besides were allowed to come. If people
in adjoining houses could hear this preaching it was
considered against the law. Under these enormities
preaching was broken up, houses were ransacked,
goods confiscated, cattle driven away and people left
to languish In prison for months without trial.
Even troops were used to hunt down these violators
of law. Further, a nonconformist minister coming
within five miles of any city or borough sending a
member to Parliament, or within the same distance
of any place where the minister had preached before,
should be fined forty pounds.
In 1678 the Test Act was passed, an act aimed at
the papists. By it all Catholics save James, the
Duke of York, were excluded from seats in Parlia
ment. For his papist faith bills were brought into
Parliament several times to exclude the Duke from
the succession, but through court influence they
failed, though the people feared him for his church
relations. The Test Act enraged Charles whose
heart, though secretly, was with the CathoHcs. Be
cause the Dissenters could not join the King in his
hot opposition to the Test Act they were made to
smart. Even a Catholic writer not ignorant of
Rome's persecutions declared that these were sur
passed by the persecutions of the hierarchy of Eng
land. The restored prelates, mostly old men, neg
lected their duties, falling back on their prerogatives,
Raising large sums of money on their restored prop
erties they freely scattered it to secure adherents by

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 297
dignities and places. Many of the young prelates
were superficial prigs, being poor apologies for minis
ters to the people. Luxury came in like a flood.
Pepys says, "The clergy was so high that aU the
people I do see protest against their practices." A
flood of evil was sweeping over England. Such
people as did not drink, or swear or break the Sab
bath were sneered at as Puritans, fanatics, republi
cans. In the plays to which throngs crowded, re
ligion was mentioned with contempt.
But in the midst of the grossness and frivolity a
new class of clerics arose to their duties. So liberal
were those men that they were classed as Latltudi
narians. Prominent among them were the Cam
bridge men, Whichcoat, Cudworth, Wilkins, More,
Worthington. They claimed that Christianity was
given of Heaven to soften and ennoble man and to
lift him away from narrowness, partisanship, super
stition and conceits. They successfully impressed
their broader views upon people with whom they
came in contact, succeeding in it so that finally bet
ter prelates came into place as Stilllngfleet, TlUot
son, Patrick and others. They were opposed alike
to the cant of Puritans and to the profligacy of the
Reformation. This advancing school brought in a
new way of preaching. The style before had been
pedantic with many quotations from the early
Fathers and other ancient writers, discussing at
length every word of the text from a concordance
with only a short application. This new school
preached "clear, plain and short." In this they
followed the lectures as the despised dissenting min-

298 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
isters were termed. The people at large by this
change were greatly aided in comprehending the
Bible and their religious duties. Through all this
time the influence of Hobbes was vast for freedom.
Great preachers, Isaac Barron, Robert South, Still-
ingfleet and others, had a rich, elevating power.
Before the Commonwealth a class of preachers
caUed lecturers arose, attaining their duties under
great difficulties. During that period they increased
in numbers and influence and though opposed by the
Establishment continued their activities afterwards.
Most of these men were dissenting ministers ejected
from their livings when the ecclesiastical weather
cock was turned about. Some were men never fully
inducted into the cleric ranks by any form of ordina
tion, but educated, apt to teach, and successful in
structors of the Bible. They were employed by
private persons or by corporations, or by other
means to preach at odd times and in places not
reached by the church authorities. They were under
legal obligation to read the ritual but mostly evaded
it. Being spirited, attractive preachers they drew
crowds to hear them, causing complaints from the
regular clergy. Most of the poor people unless en
thusiasts clung to the Established Church as did the
nobility, but men of intensely religious life went
largely with the Dissenters. Both systems produced
men and women of noble character, of pure lives and
devoted labor, people usually passed over by histo
rians yet of whom now and then a passing glimpse
can be obtained in contemporary writings.
Alongside this personal devoutness was the sym-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 299
pathy natural toward suffering shown at the time
of the Plague when the King subscribed a thousand
pounds a week for the sufferers, followed in this
beneficence by the Queen, the Court, the prelates,
and by the city government. The warning sign of
the Plague placed upon the doors was a large red
cross and the prayer, "Lord, have mercy on us all."
At this time superstition ran wild, people declaring
that ghosts were seen at the overloaded cemeteries,
portents glared In the sky, fanatics cried out the
judgments of God. Ministers, both Anglican and
Dissenters, forgetting for the time their animosities,
preached In the churches made common by the awful
visitation when thousands were dying daily, yet the
Court and the Prime Minister persecuted the faith
ful Dissenters for that very course of mercy and
devotion. In 1677 the old law for burning heretics,
coming down from a date as early as 1400, was re
pealed. The terrible whippings before Inflicted were
stopped after the Restoration. The usual results of
persecution were everywhere in evidence. Dissenters
were relentlessly deprived of their churches, were
cited before ecclesiastical tribunals, their meeting
places had to be changed secretly, disguises had to
be adopted by their preachers, some of the people
in very despair attended the parish churches. Bax
ter was cast into prison and many fled oversea. The
abortive attempt of the Duke of Monmouth to secure
the crown was based partly upon religious grounds,
since he claimed to take up arms in defense of
Protestantism when James Second, after the death

300 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
of Charles Second, ascended the throne. Of the six
hundred executed under the atrocious Jeffreys at
the west, most of those who had taken up arms with
Monmouth were Dissenters. Many of these people
not kUled under Jeffrey's mandate were sold into
slavery to the West Indies, their passage there rival
ing in suffering and mortality the middle passage
of the African negroes. In this nefarious traffic
of their English brethren some of the courtiers were
engaged. In the time of James Second the Dissenters could
be classified in four main sects, the Presbyterians,
Independents, Baptists and Quakers. The Presby
terians and Independents were greatly weakened In
the part they played in the perished Commonwealth.
The Baptists "were generally men of virtue and of
universal charity," while the Quakers though
marked with peculiarities of dress and speech had a
powerful friend at Court, William Penn. King James,
having trouble with his parliaments, determined to
rule without them, using his Council as advisers and
issuing declarations designed to have force equal to
the acts of Parliament. To aid in accomplishing this
end he decided to relieve Dissenters, both Protestant
and Catholics from the restrictions under which they
were held by preceding laws. In place of the bloody
Jeffreys, Hubert was made Chief Justice who with
a different hand went over the country seared by
the passage of Jeffreys, even encouraging con
venticles of Dissenters.
A contemporary writer, Delaune, claimed that
eight thousand Dissenters had died in prison during

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 301
the reign of Charles Second, while losses in their
business, trades, and fines exacted of them arose to
miUions of pounds. It was claimed that seventy
thousand famUIes had been ruined. As before, Hol
land and the American colonies were enriched by
such noble patriots. The Dissenters rej^elved the
Indulgence offered by James with such coldness that
it enraged him so that in a recoil of spirit
he more than ever had the old laws against
them enforced. In some ways they used the free
dom granted by the Indulgence, for the Presbyte
rians and the Independents in London set up lectures
In Pinner's Hall, this invaluable course being con
tinued until 1696. At that date the two sects sep
arated, the Presbyterians starting a similar course by
themselves at Salter's Hall, both courses being kept
up many years. In politics the Dissenters joined
the low church party, gaining ground In the par
liamentary elections where they were strenuous for
Protestantism, since the Declaration of Indulgence
had given them rights to liberty and to hold offices
of trust and profit which had been denied them be
fore. Imprisoned Quakers by the hundreds and
Catholics by the thousands were now set free. The
colonies of New England where much restriction had
been attempted were glad of the Indulgence so that
Dr. Increase Mather went to England to thank the
king for it though the colonial rulers opposed the
step. In the time of Charles Second the Anglican
Church began to find a cleavage In its ranks separat
ing it into High Church and Low Church, a division

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
marking it to the present day. High Church clergy
were more ritualistic, favored royal prerogative,
were mostly adherents of the fugitive Stuarts,
and were unfavorable to toleration. In politics this
party became known as Tories, a term of reproach
from a low Irish word. On the other hand the Low
Church were moderate in ritualism, favored tolera
tion until they were termed Latltudinarians, were bit
ter against popery, in politics were called Whigs,
also a term of reproach borrowed from a Scotch
word. As James issued his Declaration of Indul
gence the prelates refused to read it or to order their
ministers to do so, the doctrine long preached by
them by non-resistance to the royal word or will dis
sipating like a puff of smoke.
Art, during the later Stuart period before under
the ban of the Puritan spirit was to a degree revived.
Sir Christopher Wren's genius found full scope,
touching with incomparable glory the productions
of that period. The churches, chapels, oratorios,
and other buildings bear the stamp of his genius,
while Wren's true monument surrounds the visitor
as he stands wondering In the glory of St. Paul's
cathedral. Along with him was Gibbons, the ablest
sculptor of the time whose natural aptitude for art
was carefuUy fostered by those in high places, his
works being mostly of a religious character, like his
statues of John, Paul and Peter. Frescoes of
spiritual import were placed in the churches and
chapels as well as in the palace of Whitehall.

CHAPTER XXIX
England had become heartily sick of the Stuarts.
As the hopes of James arose on the prospect of an
heir by his Portuguese queen he issued another dec
laration of indulgence broader than previous ones,
being designed to cover papists in office as well as
other things unconstitutional. This royal declara
tion he ordered first to be read in the London
churches and afterwards In the churches outside of
the city. A few of the clergy fell in with this man
date but most of them refused so it was read in but
seven of the London churches. Some of the prel
ates met in the Lambeth Palace and Issued a defense
of their course, saying they deemed the declaration
a dispensing power. The seven prelates who sprang
to the defense of rights were Archbishop Sancroft,
Lloyde of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells,
Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of
Peterborough, and Trelawny of Bristol. When
these men were summoned by the angry James
they persisted in their defiance and were sent to the
Tower. On all their route to that prison a vast
multitude gave the bishops the most intense assur
ance of good will and sympathy. James saw his mis
take but his papist counselors urged him to press the
issue. It was the crisis. An address was sent to William,
the Stadtholder of Holland, inviting him and Mary,
his wife, the Protestant daughter of James, to come
303

304 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
and assume the government of England. This in
vitation was signed by lords spiritual, lords temporal
and many others. For some time William and Mary
had been looking for such a call and it was not now
unwelcome. Soon a great fleet and many battalions
of veteran troops were prepared for crossing to Eng
land. James was in an ecstasy of fear. In his ter
ror he offered to call a parliament and undo his arbi
trary enactments but the people would trust little
to these enforced concessions. His wife and child
left for France and soon James himself, learning that
the army, the aristocracy, the Universities, and al
most the whole nation had gone to William, also fled
in his wife's footsteps.
William issued a proclamation saying he came to
grant liberty In all matters civil and religious, that
he would call a lawful parliament to effect agreement
between the Established Church and Dissenters, and
that for the present all should have freedom of con
science. William was a great statesman. He
rapidly gained the confidence of most of the nation,
oaths of allegiance being taken by men of all classes.
Mary, staying for the time being In Holland, prayed
continuously for the safe passage of the fleet and
when It was finally enclosed in the harbor and the
landing effected, William, grasping Burnet by the
hand, eagerly asked that prelate If he did not now
believe in predestination, but that Latitudinarlan
divine, also tainted with Armlnianism, replied with
courtly grace that he should never forget the prov
idences of God on this occasion.
Parliament, planning toleration, passed an act

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 305
to this end without repealing however the hateful
Test Act and the Corporation Act. A further step
was urged so to modify the ritual and rites of the
church services that Dissenters could be compre
hended in the feUowship of the Establishment. The
Anglican divines in the committee strenuously op
posed any change in the liturgy. A bitter feeling
against William arose among the ritualists since they
claimed that he was opposed to the Episcopacy.
The effort to make the Christians of England into
one sect failed. Still, the act of toleration relieved
the situation so that absentees from the Anglican
services were not oppressed. Unitarians and papists,
however, were not granted these favors extended to
other sects. But in some of the colonies growing up
across the Atlantic, Rhode Island settled by the
Baptists and Pennsylvania by the Quakers, these
people were offered full religious freedom, prophecy
of the complete freedom of the church life later to be
obtained in United States. So dissatisfied were Will
iam and Mary with the spirit of the Convocation
that during their reign they did not call that body
together again nor was it called again to do business
for a century.
An inconsiderable part of the Anglican clergy
would not take the oath of allegiance, hence were
called Nonjurors. These clerics still considered
James the King of England. Eight prelates and
about four hundred curates held to this position.
They formed a nest of conspirators for the return
of James, continually intriguing by correspondence
and by messengers for this purpose. Most promi-

306 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
nent of the Nonjurors was Sancroft, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and the graceful, genial Ken, Bishop of
Bath and WeUs, whose hymns have enriched the
books of song for the church ever since his day.
Consistent time was allowed the Nonjurors to decide
on what course they would eventually take, and such
as were persistent against the law were finally dis
placed, leaving them discontented and a constant
source of annoyance. Some became teachers, a few re
entered the regular ranks, others were aimless idlers
living on the bounty of a pitying people, and others
passed to the CathoHcs. Such prelates among them
who yet held their places refused to ordain ministers
because the names of William and Mary were in the
liturgy. When a group of these disturbers, eighteen
in number, were transported from Scotland to Vir
ginia, William distributed two hundred pounds
among them.
William, a Dutchman, but slightly understanding
the English language and the peculiar qualities of
the English people, was set down to many difficult
tasks. He was sensitive, self-reliant, farseeing,
brave, a great statesman, frequently chafing at the
narrow, insular views of his parliaments and council
ors, jealous of his Dutch troops, his Dutch favor
ites, and of his own taciturnity. Although a Pres
byterian of the continental type with full belief In
predestination he was tolerant of all forms of re
ligious worship and insisted that such freedom of con
science should be allowed to all as he had been used
to at home.
When the Scots proffered him the crown of their

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 307
land and the coronation oaths were tendered him,
one requirement was to root out aU heretics and all
enemies of the worship of the true God. Knowing
that this might be construed by the intense Scots as
meaning all who were not Covenanters, the King
stopped, declaring that he would not become a per
secutor, when the Scot commissioners replied that
neither the words of the oath nor the laws of Scot
land laid any such obligation on him, on which as
surance he took the oath. He was said to have
three objects in view in England touching church
affairs, toleration of Dissenters, some plan of com
prehension, and the opening of all offices to all
Protestants. He attained the first but in the other
two England was behind the great Dutch statesman.
In his own time he was thus described:
"Great without pride, true to his word, wise in his
deliberations, secret in his councils, generous in his at
tempts, undaunted in dangers, valiant without cruelty,
and unchanged under all events; loves justice with mod
eration, government without tyranny, religion without
persecution, and devotion without hypocrisy."
In aU his inner life he was greatly aided by Mary
who like him was a devoted Christian full of charities
and kindness, a steadfast patriot and an affectionate
wife. The far-reaching Bill of Rights enlarged from the
Declaration of Rights made when William First came
to England, was the natural reaction against the
Stuart domination. One point was that any one hold
ing communion with the Church of Rome or marrying

308 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
a papist should be excluded from the crown and be
incapable of inheriting it. In 1700 in the Act of
Settlement this bill was enlarged by the law that
whoever came to the crown must join in communion
with the Church of England. In the deeper sense
of rights growing up among the people the aristoc
racy learned that it could not hope for complete
immunity from obligation to the people. The long
claim of divine right of kingship was set aside when
by vote of Parliament William and Mary were elected
to the throne.
Along with these changes for good was most as
tounding and graceless corruption in high places
and in Parliament. Bribery was so common that
ministers to have a bill passed were compelled to
buy votes in the Parliament by the wholesale. With
such precious statesmen William had to do, but his
sickened heart rebelled against the situation. But
strive as he might against the custom coming down
from past generations he could not escape. Bishop
Burnet in his honest indignation remonstrated with
the King for giving way to the custom, when William
is said to have replied : "Nobody hates bribery worse
than I. But I have to do with a set of men who have
to be managed in this vile way or not at all. I mast
strain a point or the country is lost." The struggle
for supremacy between the great political parties,
the Whigs and the Tories, was of a nature to be
expected in such a state of high life. To bribery
were added lying, violence, deceit and passionate
grasping for income and place.
In spite of these distressing phases of life there

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 309
was honesty among business men, increasing wealth
was bringing its aid to better things, virtues were
-dominating in many characters and in many homes,
letters were becoming purer and awakening con
science was relegating bribery and corruption, vio
lence and robbery, to their place outside the pale of
human progress. The persecuting times of the Im
mediate past were sure to bring out grand char
acters, like Bunyan, George Fox and Barclay, with
statesmen like John Temple and Bishop Burnet, men
tall, sun lighted men, whose Influence was on firm
foundations, and who were building for coming gen
erations. Grand men sat in episcopal palaces, and
as noble ones preached in dissenting chapels, still
bearing the reddened scars of dungeon and pillory.
These men were preparing the realm for toleration.
The vain hope was held by some of the Establishment
that if the stout teachers of dissent and their fol
lowers could not now be brought to conformity, at
least the children of coming generations could be so
enclosed in the fold. Later, education laws to this
end were enacted.
But notwithstanding this increased efficiency a
spirit of scepticism was growing up in the country
coupled with scoffing at religion. It may scarcely
be doubted but that this was a healthy recoil from
the imperfect Christianity when reached in England.
A knowledge of what that religion really was in
creased by reading the Bible and by other means, the
serious, enlightened intellect could not fail to note
important discrepancies. Christianity and practice
did not agree. Such scepticism was a good sign.

310 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
It was leading to better things. Along with this
trend was one toward Unitarian beliefs, though these
people, as also the Catholics were excepted in the
Bill of Rights. Unitarian writers of different shades
of belief known as Socinlans, Arlans, and others,
were active with the press, issuing pamphlets in ex
planation and in defense of their opinions. A tract
of this kind being sent by the penny post to some
of the lords, was ordered to be burnt by the hang
man. Matters bearing on the religious life were multiply
ing so that their view is most complex. During the
gigantic struggle with France, when that country
engaged alone in an aggressive war upon almost all
Europe, the patriotic spirit of England took varied
forms. Mutual forbearance of debtors and credi
tors, of soldiers and people, was such along with other
cases of like import that thoughtful persons saw "the
interference of a gracious Providence" protecting
and guiding England. Many were the days of fast
ing and prayer. Once a month on a Wednesday the
nation almost unanimously bent Its head in prayer
and penitence. Scotland did the same. On the
other hand the French refugees prayed and fasted
for their suffering compatriots on the continent.
England saw its own Independence at stake, for
France seemed aiming at world supremacy along with
its championship of Catholicism. Love of freedom
and hope in Christianity were great passions domi
nating England at that period. With such a high
tension of feeling it is no wonder that England saw
special providences In the escape of William from

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 311
assassination and battle danger, himself the great
organizer of opposition to France. England and
Protestantism were fortunate In having the Prince
of Orange, the wise statesman and brave general at
the head of the powers combined against French pre
tensions. Again and again it seemed that a pro
tecting hand saved him from death. Then the na
tion would break forth into thanksgiving.
Even the Nonjurors mostly seemed thankful that
he whom they deemed their rightful sovereign, James
Stuart, was not brought back by force of arms.
The private benefactions of philanthropists, a
most exalted glory of the Anglo-Saxon race as it
has spread over the continents, had pleasing in
stances along this time. Fernin, a rich Londoner,
was full of charities both private and public, aiding
the poor, opening schools, founding hospitals, and
obtaining money from other wealthy persons to aid
in these things. Yet this man was one of the pro
scribed Unitarians. Charities in many forms in
creased, the Earl of Essex built up a rich library,
others were set up in the colony of Maryland. Two
noble societies that have sent down the generations
a flood of benefits were founded now, that for the
Promotion of Christian Knowledge, and the other for
the Propagation of the Gospel In Foreign Parts.
The Greenwich Hospital projected by Queen Mary
was after her death a special concern of William
who carried it forward as her monument, so that in
1705, munificently furnished, it began to receive pa
tients. Court and hierarchy supported it. Science
bringing its rich benefits to man was fostered by

312 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
Bishop Burnet who saw, he said, that it was joined
to rehgion. With him were its great promoters,
Bacon, Boyle, Locke, and others. Schools were
founded by private means, one In Grand Lane, South-
wark, by Poulton, where poor chUdren could be
educated free of cost. This impelled others to like
deeds. Schools arose in which Protestantism was
taught along with book studies.

CHAPTER XXX
England at that time did not see the great height
of its Dutch king. One instance of his spirit of
toleration and sympathy was in his Act of Grace, of
which Macaulay says : "The nation owed to William
alone and it is one of his noblest and purest titles
of renown." Parliament, smarting under abuses of
previous reigns, refused to pass an Indemnity Bill
to give ease to the political situation. But William
issued an Act of Grace unanimously accepted by
both Houses of Parliament, granting amnesty to
most of the political offenders of the past, save the
living members of the High Court of Justice that
condemned Charles First to the scaffold. He was
steadily introducing a kindlier spirit into all English
life. After his victory in Ireland WiUiam rode the
next Sunday to St. Patrick's Cathedral, to return
thanks for the victory.
To the Injury of the island and the people tens
of thousands of soldiers soon passed to France, mostly
to be found in arms against William In his con
tinental campaigns. He so comprehended the loy
alty and sacrifice made by the Dissenters of Antrim
and Down that he gave twelve hundred pounds to
their ministers to compensate their losses. Ever
since that time this bounty has been perpetuated by
ParHament to the Presbyterians of Ulster.
The influence of Mary upon the women of her
time, whether as Princess or as Queen, was most
313

314 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
noble and elevating to the sex. Nor had England
been without those in high life and low alike who
were models of industry, charity, piety and devotion.
When the foul court of James existed some
women of it were yet devout and modest. Lady Rachel
RusseU, Lady Packingham, Mrs. Godolphin, being
foremost among those bright examples. The last
one is said to have become "more and more a re
ligious, discreet, and admirable creature, beloved
by aU."
The press, that mighty engine for man's rights,
was set free In this period. In 1685 the license by
which it was practically muzzled had been renewed
for five years, and the Parliament of 1690 voted that
it be put on again for only two years. That was
the end. A bill was brought in during 1697 to renew
the gag, but was lost in the Commons by two hundred
to sixteen. This momentous achievement was one
of those steps forward, little noted at the time, that
have now and then come to the race like the influence
of the atmosphere, unnoticed but of vastest worth.
Under the repressive system men who should have
been free to tell their thoughts would stoop to
duplicity and concealment. England alone among
the nations learned this fact, the benefits of which
the whole Anglo-Saxon race has reaped for two hun
dred years.
The royal lines of Stuart, Orange and Hanover
used the press as well as Anglican and Unitarian,
but in the contention was progress. Dean Swift
and Bollngbroke became tribunes of the people.
Sir WiUiam Williams, Speaker of Commons In 1689,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 315
printed proceedings of that house, the King's Bench
fining him ten thousand pounds, but the Commons,
standing by their Speaker, voted that the act of
that court was illegal and ordered a bill to reverse the
court decision. This act greatly aided and directed
the Commons in their later discussions.
Upon the failure of the plan of comprehension, the
Dissenters under their enlarged liberties pushed for
ward with new energy. That energy was such that
the Establishment began fearing them almost as
much as the papists. At this time the Independents,
Baptists and Quakers, had become strong and in
fluential. None of these sects could accept as Scrip
tural the government of churches by any hierarchal
plan. All of them deemed the congregation itself the
supreme governing power. In this principle was
democracy. With the hierarchy was royalty. In
religion men would be free. Dissent was not yet
fully attained, but was greatly liberated from former
restrictions. Along with Protestant Dissenters stood the Catho
lics also as Dissenters under the laws. It is prob
able that William promised to the continental Catho
lic powers aiding him against France some favors to
the EngHsh Catholics, but the fear of them in Eng
land amounted almost to a frenzy. That the pope
In opposition to France was kindly disposed toward
William, and that the latter had a party In the
pontifical court no doubt made Englishmen more
than ever watchful of Romish plots. So sharp was
this spirit that in 1700 a law was passed disabling
even ancient English CathoHc families from holding

316 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
their estates, requiring aU men above eighteen years
of age to take oaths of aUegiance and supremacy.
One to succeed to any estate must by the age of
twenty-one have further taken the test oath. This
outrageous law blotted the books until 1779 when it
was repealed. All Englishmen in foreign seminaries
were ordered to return and none was to go out to
those institutions. In 1697 all Catholic soldiers in
English battalions were dismissed though many of
them had fought bravely with William on the con
tinent. Priests were banished and if returning were
to be perpetually imprisoned. Most of these priests
were Jacobites and a hundred pounds' reward was
offered to any person discovering one of them.
An instance showing the remarkable spirit of the
Quakers was of a woman, Mary Fisher, a preacher
among them who first went to New England ; meet
ing rough usage there, she returned to England, and
then, thinking she was led by the spirit of God, set
out to preach the gospel to the Turkish Sultan,
Mahomet Fourth. At Smyrna she was headed off
by the English consul, but from Venice started
again overland for the Turkish camp at Adrianople.
Mahomet kindly received her, granting her permis
sion to preach her tenets among his soldiers, offer
ing her a guard which she declined. In safety she
passed to Constantinople, thence home. It was a
curious commentary on the times and people that
she should be more kindly treated by the Moham
medans than by the Puritans of Boston.
In England many of the Quakers kept in prison
by the authorities were basely abused by the jailors.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 317
Penn and Barclay, their great leaders, were incar
cerated like the others. Though WUliam tried to
alleviate their condition, like that of all Dissenters,
not much that he desired was accomplished. Still
their prison life gave their leaders time to write much
which added to the peculiar prison literature.
In Scotland as In England things were in transi
tion. At a convention similar to that held in Eng
land which acknowledged William, it was voted that
James had forfeited his title to the throne, and Pres
bytery was declared the natural way of religion.
Episcopacy must give way to Presbytery. All min
isters were ordered to read the proclamation declar
ing the accession of WiUiam and Mary, such as re
fused being put out of their benefices. For thus re
fusing this fate befell two or three hundred. Soon
began a course of abuse that has left a deep blot on
Scot history. Mobs of people attacked the homes
of those parish priests, especially in the western
counties, destroying furniture, burning prayer books
and vestments, turning whole families into the
streets, locking up the manses, giving peremptory
orders for them to depart, and sometimes pro
ceeding to personal violence. This was called rab
bling the ministers. However, in some parts the
ministers persisted in their services so that the ques
tion of church life became a most troublesome one to
the government. As these men were mostly in favor
of James, often scheming for his return, the sym
pathies of William had to be toward the Presby
terians. Later by act of Parliament such Episcopal
ministers as would take the oath of allegiance were

318 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
permitted to return to their parishes, which seventy
did. In the settlement of the Scot situation WUliam
had no direct voice. Each party, Episcopalian and
Presbyterian, was insistent that the true spirit of
Christianity was alone In its system. Attempts at
reconciliation failed as comprehension had failed in
England. When government by synods was finally
set up, the parishes were given a modified privilege
of selecting their own ministers.
The Scot zeal for religion led them at Edinburgh
in 1697 to hang Thomas Aikenhead, a lad of eight
een, for repeating arguments against the Bible.
Efforts to save him were made in vain, though he
heartily recanted, for clergy and legal men were
pitted against him. When hung he held a Bible In
his hand. Men committing such a murder were of
such stern mold as easily to believe in witchcraft.
A special commission was formed to try such cases,
before which venerable women and younger ones
alike were accused of traffic with the devil.
Among the Highlanders at this time many old
pagan rites persisted, being curiously blended with
church practices. Seers wrapping themselves In
bulls' hides would thus await inspiration for some
expedition or for some claim of importance. The
Fiery Cross, which often played so prominent a fig
ure in their clan risings, was dipped in the blood
of a freshly kUled goat, the four points scorched and
extinguished, and being passed rapidly from hand to
hand by swift runners called the warriors to the
gathering of arms. Schools were now set up in

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 319
every parish of the kingdom, by which the common
people, so quick in their insight, were elevated
rapidly to better things, a great tide of benefits that
have come down through the generations. Doubt
less Scotland owes more of her ever-increasing great
ness to her schools and her churches than to aU
things else.
As James reached Ireland to make a fight for his
throne he called a Parliament at Dublin which one
day passed an act of toleration, but the very next
day, the gathering being mostly CathoHcs, passed
an act by which land of Protestants held from 1641
down was confiscated to the papists, tithes were to
be transferred to the CathoHc clergy and no less than
twenty-six hundred persons, for being Protestants,
were doomed to death. As the tide of battle turned
against James and he fled again to France, the
Catholics under the treaty of Limerick were to have
security and the exercise of their religion as under
Charles Second on oath of allegiance. But the Eng
lish Parliament was slow to give those favors. Such
soldiers as chose to go to the continent to other na
tions were not permitted to take their families. Mar
riage beween people of different sects was not al
lowed. Papists could not buy land for more than
thirty-one years. Such were the laws In favor of the
Established Church that Presbyterians were also
under the ban as Dissenters, since they could hold no
office, civil or military, and their meetings were under
penal liabilities. Once, however, there was union
and harmony. As the Romish arms at the siege of
Londonderry threatened the devoted thousands of

320 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
that city, eighteen Anglican divines and half as
many nonconformists united to use their utmost in
fluence in defense and in sustaining courage. Preach
ing and prayer were constantly going on. The
whole people became a mighty corps of Ironsides.

CHAPTER XXXI
The Good Queen Anne was profoundly pious.
She was so devoted to the Established Church as
greatly to fear toleration, hating dissent, though
promising protection to Dissenters. On her birth
day in 1704 she publicly announced what Bishop
Burnet led her to do, the transfer of flrst fruits and
tenths to the poor parishes of the country. This
money, amounting yearly to one hundred thousand
pounds or more, had in papal times been given to
the popes, and after the Reformation it had been
received and used by the sovereigns. Not only were
the priesthood meagerly paid, but in her time thou
sands of clerics had no place at all for officiating.
To form a test of Anne's claim to royalty the clergy
had her make the trial of touching to cure scrofulous
diseases. The trial was claimed to be a success,
thus obtaining divine confirmation. Samuel Johnson,
then a small child, was among those receiving the
royal touch, though vainly in his case, for that great
scholar suffered all through life from the disease,
as did others touched by the Queen.
The clergy tried hard to have the Occasional Con
formity Act repealed. No less than three times
when the Commons passed a bill for its repeal, did
the lords defeat It. Then when Parliament became
strongly Tory and the heat of the Sacheverell case
was glowing, a fourth bill from the Commons in
1711 passed by the lords through a collusion of
321

322 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Whigs and Tories. For some years this repeal
blotched the fair fame of England, but after the
accession of George First a Whig Parliament re
pealed the repeal, for the law had become odious
among thoughtful men, since one of the most ex
alted acts of worship was degraded to a test for
office. Cowper, the poet, shot an arrow by caUing
it "an office key, the pick lock to a place." "Not
for piety but for place," said Dean Swift as he saw
rakes and other disreputable ones going to the com
munion. An Indemnity Bill to relieve those unwill
ing to take the Test Oath passed nearly every year.
Asperity gradually lost many of Its thorns. Lat-
itudinarlanlsm and Scepticism had done their
work. Another law passed in 1714, the Schism Act, was
designed to suppress the schools and seminaries estab
lished by the Dissenters, shutting them off from
educating their children in their own tenets. Un
der this law no one without a license from the bishop
could teach a public or a private school and school
masters must conform to the Anglican liturgy and
take the sacrament. If they attended any other
form of worship they were to be imprisoned and in
capacitated from all teaching. If most of the Dis
senters were harried out of their landed holdings
they flocked to the towns and cities, where by trade
and Industries they grew wealthy and influential,
becoming at the same time more intellectual than
the country people. The immigrants seeking more
religious freedom than given them on the continent
were also of a superior mind and of a high grade of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 323
industry. It was said that most of European in
dustry was in the hands of Protestants.
Sects multiplied. Some of their names were
Seekers, Waltlsts, Antinomians, Brownists, Ranters,
Philadelphians. It was said that Armlnianism, that
theological spook of former generations, was spread
everywhere. Seventh Day people kept Saturday
sacred instead of Sunday.
Along with the decay of religious life in the early
part of the century the Dissenters were declared to
have decreased in numbers. Possibly the toleration
given under William softened their temper and re
moved some of the most strenuous incentives to
vigor. During the long leadership of Walpole, the
repeal of the Occasional Conformity Act being
rescinded and the Schism Act repealed. It was the
studied purpose of that great statesman to leave
matters unstirred among the sects. In the House
of Lords It was laid down by the great Lord Mans
field "that nonconformity with the Established
Church Is recognized by law and not an offense at
Vvhich it connives." A bill passed while the Whigs
were in power to let the Quakers in their affirmation
omit the words, "in the presence of Almighty God."
These honest people were abused, lied about and
caricatured. Early in the century a strong trend toward Anti-
trlnltarlanism set in among able divines, university
professors and prominent laymen. For a while laws
against them were enforced, two Presbyterian min
isters being deprived of their parishes for such views,
as also Whiston, a Cambridge professor. But the

324 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
trend increased, laws were neglected, and by the
middle of the century nearly aU the Presbyterian
ministers had adopted Unitarian views.
Every opinion of England in the early part of
the eighteenth century shows the condition of the
religious life to have been most lamentable.
"Hogarth's picture of 'A Sleeping Congregation'
speaks of the times when the bewigged preacher droned
his tedious hours without the slightest attempt to teach
the vicious or to arouse the indifferent."
What fire blazed was between the sects. Shock
ing morals prevailed among public men. Smuggling
and the slave trade were regarded as lawful and in
nocent, though a few Quakers had begun declaring
an opposition to the latter that never ceased until
its utter extinction. The fear of a Stuart move
ment hung like a pall over the nation, a constant
threat to spiritual liberty and consltutional free
dom. One of the bishops, Atterbury of Rochester,
was discovered in a plot to seat the Pretender on the
throne, and being arrested was convicted of treason,
but escaping to France, remained in exile untU his
death. Indeed, the quiet accession of the House of Han
over and the triumph of constitutional over irrespon
sible royalty were largely owing to the sturdy ad
herence of the nonconformists to that House. But
these prosperous sectaries along with the Churchmen
shamefully neglected the lower classes. After the
distressing war with France a rapid increase of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 325
population came, but no corresponding increase of
attention to the moral, intellectual, spiritual needs of
those people took place. Not a new parish was
formed. A new church was seldom built. No new
schools were founded. The rural peasantry was left
with hardly any moral instruction, and the condi
tion of the lowly in the cities was hardly better.
Mobs sacked and pillaged at will and terrified the
city. Ladies went to church to ogle, flirt and gos
sip. To the royal chapel of St. James they would
carry their fancy work and knit during service.
Pauperism increased, this being laid against the in
dustry of the continental refugees and the aid ex
tended to them. Yet the handicrafts brought by
them and the infusion of their sturdy faith were in
valuable to England.
But deep as were these fetid streams, others of
purer water were deeper. Later decades of the eight
eenth century were to show how true and devout the
British heart could be when properly led in better
ways. Feasts and fasts were observed as occasion
arose. Hospitals were built by laymen, who also
did something to alleviate the condition of prisoners
in Newgate and in other jails. For a while after the
earthquake at Lisbon indecent masquerades were
suppressed in fear of a similar stroke from Prov
idence upon sinning London. Inmates of the work
houses were taught some industry and reading, writ
ing, arithmetic as well. To them was also given
religious instruction. To meet the needs of growing
London, Parliament voted three hundred fifty thou
sand pounds to buUd fifty new churches, though but

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
twelve were erected. In planning these Sir Christo
pher Wren and his pupUs put to work their genius
for architecture.
Under Walpole the Whig party retained its old
love for civU and religious liberty, yielding stability
and breadth to the nation morally and financially.
Walpole dared to extend liberal feelings toward
CathoHcs. Societies to suppress evil and to aid in
works of charity and devotion were formed among
the churches. Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor, preached
such liberal doctrines and showed his spirit so pro
gressive that he was half berated by others, the
Bangorlan controversy being so intense that the
government, really in sympathy with him, closed the
Convocation, which was not called again for nearly
a century and a half. Hoadly himself was promoted
by the King.
There was some decency in the morals of Anne's
court, but that seems to have fled as the court of
George First was set up. The manners of the new
King were coarse and brutal, his relations with
women infamous ; violence and corruption were the
potent powers of rule. Walpole, so long the domi
nating minister, used bribery with the Prince of
Wales, with the Queen and with the Dissenters. He
seemed incapable of comprehending any exalted sen
timent in man. Defoe said there was a set of stock
jobbers in London whose business was to buy and
sell seats in Parliament, the price being a thousand
guineas. Even the great Marlborough was under
stood to grow rich by shady ways, by using money
furnished for his famous campaigns on the continent

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 327
and by other questionable means, while his officers,
down to non-commissioned ones, were guilty of
similar peculations. Gaming houses became places
of unspeakable vice and women joined in the pas
sion for gambling.
Drunkenness was greatly increased in the early
Hanoverian time by the introduction of gin. Be
fore this the habit had deepened by the excesses of
the soldiers returning from the campaigns on the con
tinent. The introduction of light French wines also
gave an impulse to the awful vice. Great men were
in the toils. Addison was not free from the weak
ness ; Oxford would come drunk into the Queen's
presence. Walpole's father would require his son to
drink twice to his once that the young man might not
see his father drunk. Walpole's later debauchery
showed the fruit. It was considered a disgrace by
the gentry to let a man go out of their houses sober.
Among the common people beer and ale took the place
of the costlier liquors among the rich. Laws had
permitted all to brew these cheap drinks, the amount
in 1688 with a population of but five millions was
twelve million four hundred thousand barrels. By
1751 the population of London was said to be
sensibly decreased, so great was the mortality and
diminished birthrate induced by drink. Nor was it
in London and other great cities alone. Mrs.
Montagu, writing in a private letter from Yorkshire
at this time, deprecated the drunken and vicious con
dition of the people, saying: "Most of the poor
ladies in the neighborhood have more hogs in their
drawing-rooms than they ever had in their pigsty."

328 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
So alarmed did the government finally become that
stringent laws were made, and better sentiment grow
ing up, the evil gradually lessened, although it has
come down to the present day, an awful heritage of
suffering. The famous fairs held in London, St. Bartholo
mews, Southwark and others, while yielding a coarse
enjoyment to the people, became places of such de
bauchery that the government finally suppressed
them. As if nothing appealed in vain to the low
spirit of the age, astrology ran mad, while witchcraft
caused several to be burned in Anne's time, the law up
to the ninth year of George Second's reign making
it a capital crime. A feature of the social Hfe exert
ing great influence was the Coffee Houses, which
must have been an improvement on the taverns and
other places of liquor drinking. The people, lacking
newspapers, flocked to the coffee houses to exchange
the latest items of gossip, court rumor, politics, or
news from the continent. Oddly, religious discussion
was totally debarred. Rules also against profanity
and brawling were enforced. To these houses liter
ary men came, politicians, bishops, and any one who
could pay five cents for a drink and a sandwich. The
elegant Swift, the lordly Johnson, the poetic Dryden,
would frequently be found there, their table talk in
some instances making this or that coffee house re
nowned. Being open to all they bred democratic
feelings. No member of the Anglo-Saxon race can read the
history of prisons and prison life in those times with
out a thrill of shame and indignation. Their atroci-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 329
ties came into notice and the first steps toward
reformation were effected by a report of a committee
from Parliament. Under great suffering a friend
of General Oglethorpe had died in prison and that
noble-hearted man from his place in the Commons suc
ceeded in having a committee of investigation formed.
Such scrutiny had been attempted before and had
failed. It was found that j ailors brutally abused the
prisoners; respectable debtors unable to pay their
prison fees were confined among those suffering from
smallpox ; from the unsanitary conditions fevers
were engendered, of which many died, the contagion
sometimes going out and starting a plague. In the
courts of law when trying cases judges and jurymen
were smitten to death by the foul, noisome poison of
such conditions. Prisoners had to catch mice for
food, were confined in underground dungeons and
beaten by the jailors and sometimes compelled to live
with the hogs. Beyond what can now be written
Oglethorpe's committee found to be going on, while
those high in office either neglected their duties in the
matter or received pay for their duplicity. Some
times felons whose punishment was death were asked
to plead before the judges and if they refused were
subjected to what was called Pressing to Death. In
a dungeon such a culprit was stretched on his back,
feet and legs extended and tied, then a board was
placed upon his chest with stones on it of a certain
weight in which plight, badly fed, he would remain
day and night tiU he died. A book, "The Cry of the
Oppressed," also called attention to these enormities.
StiU, little was done in behalf of prisoners.

330 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
If only such things as these were seen, the moral
condition of England during the early eighteenth
century might have seemed hopeless. But as the
century passed on, in the darkness was light. Not
wholly had the real Christian spirit died out. The
regular ordinances of the Anglican Church were sus
tained, the services of the Dissenters were carried on,
though in all the church labors there was little light
or advance. A kindlier feeling was developing.
A rebound from gross drunkenness was taking
place. Young men were laying aside their swords
on the streets so that murders and duels
were less frequent. With fines collected against
the profane, drunken and foul, charity schools were
established, children clothed, and put out to
trades. In these various reforms, laymen took an
important place. The Duke of Cumberland, who or
dered such atrocious slaughter of the wounded and
prisoners after the battle of CuUoden, was despised
and sent to merited obscurity.
In a bill offered by Halifax the Cottonlan collec
tion of priceless manuscripts was given to public use,
forming the nucleus of the British Museum. A single
great artist, Hogarth, glorified this age. His was
also a high moral purpose, the homely pictures of
common life being designed to aid In uplifting morals.
Puritanism is accused of having destroyed art, yet
the spirit of Hogarth is that of Puritanism. Music,
like art, produced no great musician. The renowned
German composer, Handel, came to England, setting
up a theater in which his lighter work was produced ;
but meeting with financial failure, he turned from his

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 331
opera to sacred music, bringing out in 1732 his great
oratorio, "Esther," followed by "Deborah," "Saul"
and others. Yet these did not meet with full recogni
tion in London. Then he went to Dublin, where the
music-loving Irish appreciated his rich productions
and gave the musician abundant success. His su
premest oratorio, "Messiah," made its first appear
ance In that city. Returning to London, his high
contribution to sacred music was finally understood
and appreciated, and Handel, now old and blind, was
richly compensated.
But if sterility marked music and art in England,
the product of the press may be regarded as an offset.
The lifting of censorship had set the tide free.
Floods of printed matter poured forth. The com
mon form used was pamphlets. Books also were pro
duced, some indeed of no pigmy size but huge folios
with hundreds of pages. Now magazines and reviews
offer vent to discussions which then found avenues
through pamphlets singly issued by the writers. In
the first decade or two of the century religious mat
ters led in this activity, almost all the work of the
press touching this life on one side or the other.
Says Wyon :
"Since the emancipation of the press scarcely a month
has passed without some crazy person exciting a sensa
tion in religious circles by publishing a book to show
the absurdity of the Christian religion, or to prove that
the doctrines and ceremonies of the church had been
erroneously deduced from the Scriptures."
But the blossoming freedom of the press did not

332 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
send out its aroma without being troubled. The old
fear of the press lingered in the Commons, which at
tempted to assume even yet a depressing censorship
over it. Swift and Defoe were severely handled by
that irate body, while newspaper writers had to beg
pardon on their knees before the Commons for writing
squibs on passing events. A book on manners by the
poet Whitehead was burned by the hangman, as was
a volume of sermons by one of the bishops. But the
tide could not be stopped by such obstructions, since
they were gradually overcome and the press worked
onward in its high mission. The free issue of period
icals was for a time checked by the stamp tax, even
the choice works of Addison and Steele suffering
under it. The way of pensions to literary men was
doubtless a wise one, both Whig and Tory govern
ments granting such aid, thus enabling literary men
to devote themselves to literary toil. Newton and
Locke were able to leave to us a richer legacy in sci
ence and philosophy for the pensions conferred on
them. Steele, Addison, Prior, and many others en
riched literature yet more for monetary aid, yielding
leisure that literary men must needs obtain.

CHAPTER XXXII
Along with this activity of the press, and partly a
product of it, was the elevation of the people. As
the masses read these discussions and their Bibles a
consciousness of rights, of liberty, of free speech and
broader outlook came to them. One manifestation
of this was that the electors began to send instruc
tions to their representatives in the Commons how to
vote on pending issues. Such right had been used
in Cromwell's time, but had ceased until now. Its
power among the people and the movement toward
democracy scared some politicians and observers, but
what the nation had for two centuries been strug
gling for was now in part being attained. The
steady-headed and true-hearted Anglo-Saxon race
was working forward in its vocation, if through mists
and rough ways. Not alone were the British people
helped by these matters ; the arms of William and
Marlborough, the philosophy of Locke and others,
and the free speech attained, carried similar ideas to
the continent, so that all western Europe was sown
with the seeds of rights that ever since have been
yielding their beneficent fruit to God's children.
England became Europe's educator. Yet the negro
slave had no apostle of his rights among the clergy
or leading Christian people.
All the sects were inactive. Doubtless in no age
following the Reformation was religious life so dull.
In the Established Church the large number of cures
333

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
not affording more than fifty pounds a year kept
able men from the ministry. No great prelates led
the clergy of lower grades. These men gradually feU
into the contempt of the advancing intelligence of
the people, who came to honor Hoadly in his aggres
sive advance. Satirists made the condition of the
Estabhshment the butt of their jokes. After the
House of Hanover ascended the throne the old doc
trine of the divine right of kings fell out of cleric
contention. Says one:
"The strength of the church party in England was the
most serious danger which threatened the parliamentary
institutions of England."
But valuable additions were made to literature,
since some of the quiet parishes and well-paid offices
afforded the clerics leisure and support, enabling
them to spend much time in productive study.
So severely were the laws against Catholics pressed
that most of them had fled to the continent, establish
ing seminaries in Spain, Portugal, Flanders, France,
and Italy to educate their children and priests. By
a law of George First two justices of the peace might
at any time and without previous complaint tender
the oath of allegiance and of abjuration to any Cath
olic, who, if he refused, was liable to all the penalties
of recusancy. This law was made an instrument of
private hatred and revenge. Mobs sometimes wrecked
the chapels of the papists and howled at them when
carried as prisoners through the streets. For enlist
ing as soldiers they could be punished. In 1745, when
the order was given to hunt out aU Jesuits and

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 335
priests, a protest was put in by the Catholic conti
nental nations, to which the Secretary of State replied
by stating the fears arising from their increase.
From the Reformation to the Revolution, and after,
the only recourse of the Catholics was to submit in
fear and silence and leave to historians of a calmer
age the duty of vindicating their reputation. A bill
was passed to naturalize the Jews, but was repealed
after a year, so great was the cry from Churchmen
that it was an abandonment of Christianity.
A curious episode occurred In 1709. One Sachev
erell, a royal chaplain of no marked ability was sent
to preach before the Lord Mayor and aldermen at St.
Paul's, as he had previously done at the assizes. In
these sermons he attacked the Whig administration ve
hemently, denounced toleration, renewed the doctrine
of non-resistance, declared the church in danger from
Dissenters, and like most Christian people deplored
the age of scepticism. The Lord Mayor had the St.
Paul's sermon printed, and immediately arose a vast
commotion. So intense grew the uproar that the
Whig Ministry decided that Sacheverell should be im
peached. To this act the Commons proceeded.
Rash was the step, for the clergy, having at their
- back the great majority of the nation, made Sachev
erell a hero, as did the mobs. Amidst a whirl of wild
est noise and partisanship the trial went on, but all
the penalty inflicted was that he should not preach or
receive a beneflce for three years, be imprisoned for
three months, and have the fateful sermons burned
by the hangman. Out of prison, making a progress
from town to town he received the parade of a con-

336 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
queror. An election soon following, a strong Tory
house was returned, the trial of the obscure priest
having cost the Whigs the control of national mat
ters. On Anne's accession the Episcopalians in Scotland,
knowing her love for that church, were highly elated,
but a Parliament formed in WiUiam's time held over.
This body defended Presbytery. The Scot Parlia
ment ratified by a large majority an act of 1689
making it high treason to alter by writing or speech
the Claim of Right which denounced Episcopacy as
unsupportably grievous to Scotland. By this act if
any Episcopalian should stand up for his own views
he would run the risk of being hung and quartered.
As late as 1746 the Episcopalians were subjected to
most distressing laws of restriction. Such extreme
positions were really in accord with the extreme views
of a vast number of the Scots.
Hardly less were the Catholics hated, though some
powerful families of that faith were able to shield
their fellow believers, while the Highlanders were
wholly Catholic. Among these one small seminary
for educating priests was kept up. In Edinburgh
even vestments and altar trinkets were searched for
and burned, and three priests found hiding were im
prisoned. As the union with England was under dis
cussion great fear arose lest after the union, the
Anglicans predominating, the British Parliament
would set up the Establishment in Scotland, so the
Scot commissioners made it a point that the united
Parliament should establish Presbytery as the mode
of church government in Scotland forever. This was

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 337
fully allowed. Each people was to retain its own
chosen way of church government.
When the plans for union were completed and in
London a great spectacular demonstration was taking
place, in Scotland, by a plan of the clergy who had
always opposed the union, it was made a day of na
tional mourning to propitiate Deity who was deemed
to be punishing the Scot people for their sins. But
the union brought immense benefits to Scotland.
The Presbytery established, and free trade with En
gland gained, the hatred of long generations grad
ually gave way and Scotland was given an impulse
along the highways of wealth, culture, religious prog
ress and personal improvement, such as has seldom
visited a nation. Along with other progress was a
most important evangelical movement under Erskine
beginning in 1733, similar to that in England under
the Wesleys. Whitefield fraternized and worked with
this movement when on his famous preaching tours.
During the first half of the eighteenth century the
religious condition of Ireland was most deplorable.
Unfortunately when the Bible was translated into
English at the time of the Reformation it was not
done in the language of the Irish. On the Island the
Anglican Church was by law in power, yet could ex
tend its power over but a limited part of the country,
being confined to the so-called Pale, a strip on the
Irish Sea contiguous to England. The Scot Presby
terians dominated in Ulster, and the Catholics every
where else outside the Pale. These three forms of
religious practice could by no means endure one
another. Many French Huguenots fled to Ireland,

338 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
conforming in most instances to the Anglican ritual.
They set up schools and established important manu
factures of linen, silks and so on, bringing wealth and
valuable influences to the country.
The penal laws laid on Ireland In WiUiam's time
were kept in operation now, notwithstanding the
treaty of Limerick, and these, with other repressive
laws, hit hard upon the Presbyterians as well as the
CathoHcs. But the stout Scot spirit could ill brook
such indignities. In religious matters the Presby
terians were active, occupying parishes deserted by
the Anglicans, sending missionaries among the Irish,
in time of war heartily joining the English. But in
the early Hanover dynasty a dark wave of impiety
and scepticism spread over these people ; infidel clubs
arose, education and divine worship were neglected,
while Sabbath breaking, gaming, profanity and
drunkenness. Increased.
The story of the Catholics during this time is one
of the blackest of any people In modern ages. Both
at home and in Ireland the English were mortally
afraid of them. And there were some reasons.
Their hearty support of James Second, their course
toward Protestants on the continent, the plots and
emissaries In England, could not but engender such
suspicions. Hence the course the English govern
ment pursued was always repressive. Indeed the
great officers declared that the laws did not suppose
any such person as an Irish CathoHc to exist. Being
denied school teachers of their own as well as the uni
versities and the privilege of sending their children
abroad for education, the native Irish lapsed into a

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 339
most brutal and ignorant condition. The Quakers
of England had in their noble spirit gone in Crom
well's time as missionaries, and their work of preach
ing, exhorting and winning the people to better ways
had existed to this time. But their results were
small. To celebrate mass Irish priests had been compelled
to register, and this to the number of a thousand
they did. Later the oath of allegiance was de-
nianded, followed by that of abjuration, which re
pudiated the Stuart dynasty as well as some of the
central dogmas of Catholicism. Farther on the
whole hierarchy, archbishops, bishops, deans, priests,
were ordered out of the country with a penalty of
death for treason if they returned. Friars were
under similar penalty. But enforce the laws as the
English might, brave bishops and priests passed
among their people, hiding in their huts, skulking in
the forests and bogs. To allure the Catholics from
their faith, offers of protection, of place, of money,
were made, but coaxing was as futile as compulsion.
In time the English found the utter futility of such
measures to make the CathoHcs become Protestants
and by very neglect some mitigation came.
The sceptical movement in England formed no
small part in the religious life of the nation. Lord
Herbert claimed that religion was founded not upon
revelation but upon immediate consciousness of God
and divine things, declaring with the Quakers and
some other Dissenters that an internal light was su
perior to a revelation. Even If a revelation was
given to man, Lord Herbert said, no one could sue-

340 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
cessfuUy transfer it to another man. He believed
in a God whom men ought to reverence and worship,
in holiness of life and repentance of sin, with rewards
and punishments after death. His prayer offered
about publishing one of his books and the answer he
believed he had to it are most delightful and simple.
The roots of his teaching and that of Hobbes ran
back centuries. Hobbes was a giant thinker whose
greatest book, "The Leviathan," treated of religion,
philosophy and politics. Sustaining the Stuarts in
their claim to despotic royalty, he tried to block
progress and freedom. For a while he was the tutor
of Charles Second at Paris. Great excitement arose
over the discussions of his theories, it being said that
in every tavern and coffee house, in Westminster
Hall, and even In the churches he was hotly talked
about. Locke's teachings were somewhat like those
of Hobbes. But the works of Francis Bacon, also
written along this period, were of high religious cast
and influence. He went directly to nature to learn
by experiment what was taught. The Inductive
Philosophy was devout, making no real attack upon
Christianity. StiU the sceptical movement gained momentum.
Montesquieu visiting England wrote, "Everyone
laughs if one talks religion." Voltaire, also in Eng
land, said that only enough religion was left in that
country to distinguish the Tories who had little
from Whigs who had less. Swift's satire, termed
"Abolishing Dissenters," was not too severe a cut.
The name Deism was given to this sceptical drift.
It was not so much irreligious as an attempt to find

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 341
religion outside of the Bible. It claimed a pure,
primitive religion among mankind before revelation.
Bishop Berkeley of Cloyne, an ardent pupU of Locke,
wrote books helping to a higher philosophic insight
and a better religious spirit.
A prominent school of Deist writers arose, whose
books met with instant and able replies from well
equipped clergy and others. Charles Blount, John
Toland, Anthony Collins, Thomas Woolston, Mat
thew TIndal, Thomas Chubb, and Lord Shaftesbury
attacked the Bible and Christianity on various
grounds. Since Paul and Jesus departed wholly from that
partof the Scriptures, the burden of Thomas Magan's
writings was against the Old Testament. In Lord
Bolingbroke's attack upon the Bible he charged Jesus
with giving equivocal answers to the Jews and with
keeping them In error. God was so elevated that he
could not be an example to man. David Hume, the
historian, urged that "beyond the uniform succession
of sensible phenomena there is nothing proved of self,
of God, or of moral government." His famous argu
ment against miracles rests on the relation of testi
mony to experience. By experience we see the uni
formity of nature, as is true of the reliableness of
testimony to experience. As these balance each
other, we cannot believe a miracle. Hume repudiated
the name of being an infidel or a Deist, and in his
later life leaned more and more toward views held by
church people. Gibbon, possibly the greatest his
torian of our race, closed alike the school of sceptics
and the eighteenth century. While in college he

342 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
accepted the Catholic belief, but later, as he pursued
his extensive historical studies, turned from it. He
failed to see the vast superiority of Christianity to
the imperfect systems of religion that he treated In his
"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Like
Hume, in his later years he saw better things in
Christianity. The whole sceptical movement died for lack of
truth in it. Its many positions were so ably attacked
by Bentley, Paley, Doddridge, Chandler, Leland, by
Butler in his immortal book, "The Analogy of Re
vealed Religions," and by others that it was certain
to die. These had truth and ability and culture on
their side. But its teachings taken to the continent,
led to disaster in French politics and in German the
ology. And the most effective answer to it all was
the rise of Methodism in the latter half of the eight
eenth century.

CHAPTER XXXIII
"Wesleyanism has acted as a cement of the English-speaking
race and thereby contributed materially toward the solution
of the supreme political problems of our times. The Wesley
brothers, who founded the Methodist polity, are a more living
force to-day, constraining the minds of the English-speaking
men to brotherly feeling and a sense of national unity, than
the Wellesleys, although the WeUesleys reared the Indian Em
pire and crushed the empire of Napoleon." — W. T. Stead.
The latter part of the eighteenth century was en
nobled by the Methodist movement. First of all
Methodism was a revival. While its doctrines had
been taught more or less fully before its rise, and
some of its plans of organization had been used by
the societies of the preceding century and by the
Moravians, its spirit was a renewal. Both the Wes
leys and Whitefield were ardent churchmen, but the
Church did not see its opportunity to keep the new
spirit within itself and use it. A like mistake was
also made when Puritanism was thrust out of the
Anglican Church. Unity of doctrine, ritual, plans of
work, have been found Impossible in Protestantism.
Freedom has nurtured wider opportunities. Man Is
a free being, each finding it his joy to pursue paths of
his own selection. In such paths he can best work
for himself and others. It was these rights that the
little knot of Oxford students sought when they
formed the Holy Club.
As they studied the Greek Testament, did good
343

344 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
works, frequented the church and communion, lived
in ways methodical, they well earned the nickname
of Methodists. Their plan, like the mustard seed of
the parable, had rich, expansive life. John Wesley,
by his supreme administrative ability, easily became
the leader. He did not find his true vocation untU
through the teachings of the Moravians a strange
warming of his heart took place in the little gather
ing at Aldersgate Street Church that memorable day.
May 24, 1738. At that hour an impulse was given
to the great heart of one having a masterful intellect,
which was to change profoundly the Anglo-Saxon re
ligious life. A similar uplift of soul about the same
time had come to Charles Wesley and to Whitefield,
the revival work of the three being mostly united at
that time.
Their preaching and Intensity aroused the sleep
ing churches of London that did not like to be
aroused, so they were quickly closed to the stirring
evangelists. But the neglected masses of the people
would listen and heed. If the new preachers could
not speak in the churches, they could appeal to the
crowds gathered on the hillsides and in the natural
amphitheaters of Cornwall and on the heaths about
London. The people of England were ready for ad
vance in religion if it could be offered them in a direct,
hearty manner. This the new preaching did. John
Wesley at first shrank from outdoor preaching, think
ing, with his high church notions, that It would be
almost a sin for one to be saved outside a church.
But under the successful example of Whitefield he
quickly yielded his scruples, taking to field-preaching

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 345
himself. From the coalpits of Cornwall the people
came to listen, to be so awakened to their sins as to
fall to weeping, the tears making white gutters down
their faces through the grime.
These awakened masses needed pastoral care such
as they were not likely to get in the churches, either
from the Establishment or among the nonconform
ists. Led in what seemed to Wesley, as it must to the
student of history, the most clearly providential ways
Wesley began organizing the converts into societies
and classes for prayer, study and mutual encourage
ment, by which these people had pastoral care under
the eye of chosen leaders and the tireless evangelists.
Soon chapels had to be erected, the first one being at
Bristol. These were not Dissenter chapels, but were
claimed by the Wesleys and Whitefield to be additions
to the Established Church accommodations. All his
Hfe Wesley insisted upon no separation from the
Anglican Church, but his ordaining men later without
being himself a prelate meant. In the dictum of Chief
Justice Mansfield, such a separation.
Of the three, Whitefield was the most popular, elo
quent preacher. He stirred the aristocracy as well
as the peasantry. The philosophic Hume and the
cool-blooded Franklin were alike moved and charmed.
Bollngbroke and Pitt listened to his fiery sermons.
Through all classes the revival was going on. Gross
sins became less common. Sabbath desecration and
drunkenness lessened. The historian Green thinks
that the career of Pitt, the great victories of sea and
land, must yield "in real importance to that religious
revolution which shortly before had begun in Eng-

346 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
land by the preaching of the Wesleys and Whitefield."
WiUiam Pitt joined hands with Wesley to aid the ad
vance of the nation toward better things.
The Wesleys were sons of a high church rector,
himself a son of a dissenting clergyman. Their
mother was the daughter of a Puritan minister, Dr.
Annesley, who In her young years, dehberately de
cided to go with the Established Church. Having
been given a thorough education, and being of an in
dependent spirit, she was the wise, progressive mother
of that remarkable family, for genius marked other
members of It besides John and Charles. These two
leaders of Methodism could look to their talented
mother as the real founder of the movement, for she
taught them in the Epworth parsonage many of the
traits of character and spirit that distinguished their
lives. She gave them cheer and counsel even to her
death at an extreme old age. It is the old story of
the mother making the man. Yet the father of the
Wesleys was an able rector, a writer and a poet.
John, graduating from Christ's College, Oxford, In
1723, for his fine scholarship was elected to a Fel
lowship in Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1726.
Crisp sayings pointing to his high purpose are pre
served In his voluminous journals and elsewhere.
When urged to settle down to the use of his Fellow
ship or to take a parish, he uttered that memorable
saying which appears on the memorial tablet in West
minster Abbey: "I consider the whole world my
parish." His broad catholicity found expression in
this, "I desire to have a league offensive and defensive

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 347
with every soldier of Christ." He possessed a keen
insight in business matters, holding to three rules,
"Gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can."
When he had an income of thirty pounds a year he
lived on twenty-eight, giving away two pounds ; as his
income increased, he still lived on twenty-eight pounds
a year and gave the remainder away. When because
of the wars taxation was heavy, silver plate was
taxed, and the officer, thinking a man so prominent
as Wesley must have large quantities, demanded of
him a return of his riches, Wesley responded: "Sir,
I have two silver teaspoons at London and two at
Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present and I
shall not buy any more while so many around me want
bread." Wesley's great administrative ability, rated by
Lord Macaulay as not inferior to that French mar
vel, Richelieu, found full scope in the evolution of the
new sect. The three leaders had been ordained In the
Anglican Church, but their new evangel led most of
the clergy, from bishops down to obscure curates, to
oppose and persecute. The Methodists were sub
jected to the grossest insults and violent abuse. To
guide a great national revival to success through
these obstacles was a herculean task, but it was suc
cessfully done. Itinerating from London to Bristol,
to Newcastle, and in time over all Wales, then to
Scotland and finally to Ireland, not in the age of
transit, these three evangelists reached their societies
summer and winter, organized new ones, did pastoral
work from house to house, preached incessantly, met

848 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the classes, and sifting out the vicious and backslid
den, encouraged the faithful and gathered in the
converts. As the work enlarged, Wesley saw the need of con
ferences with his scattered workers, and so called to
gether a few to discuss means and doctrines. Such
conferences, increasing In size and importance, were
held through his whole life. In this way he origi
nated that valuable gathering of tollers which has be
come a peculiar mark of Methodism.
Wesley's activities were beyond comprehension.
His itinerating over the three kingdoms for more than
fifty years caused him to ride, mostly on horseback,
more than a quarter million miles. He read many
books as he journeyed along and kept up great lit
erary activity along with his incessant care of the
societies and churches. He wrote notes on the New
Testament and prepared text-books for schools. He
projected and carried to completion a Christian Li
brary of eighty volumes In which he selected, edited,
and compressed the best English writings in all fields
of research. In later life he founded the Arminian
Magazine, filling its issues with valuable material
growing out of the expanding work. He married at
forty-eight, after two or three disagreeable love af
fairs, to find at that advanced age he had married
one not able to sympathize with him in his work,
whether religious, intellectual or social. She became
jealous of his intimate correspondence with others,
interrupted it, opened his letters, and is said to have
proceeded even to personal violence.
The teachings used by these revivalists were simple,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 349
practical and of the Bible. In a defense Wesley de
fined a Methodist thus :
"One who has the love of God shed abroad in his
heart by the Holy Ghost given to him, who loves the
Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul,
and with all his mind, and with all his strength. He
rejoices evermore, prays without ceasing, and in every
thing gives thanks. His heart is full of love to all
mankind, his one desire of life to do the will of God.
He keeps God's commandments, does not fare sumptu
ously, does not lay up treasures on earth, nor adorn
himself with costly apparel, shuns vice, speaks no evil
of his neighbor, but does good to all men."
Penance, ritualism, purgatory, were by these
preachers consigned to limbo. A distinctive teach
ing was that of the Witness of the Holy Spirit.
They urged that if one was converted his new rela
tion to the Heavenly Father was made known to him,
the Spirit bearing witness with his spirit that he was
a child of God. This rich doctrine, in books before,
was now first made common to the people. Now the
English masses learned that if God pardoned their
sins, he would show that release to them. This is
perhaps one of the most distinctive results of the
Methodist movement.
Some twenty years after the Inception of this re
vival the experience of Perfect Love, or Christian
Perfection, sprang up spontaneously among the
Methodists. While not altogether new, it had never
been brought to the comprehension of the people.
Wesley watched this movement with his usual discrim-

360 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Ination, conferring with those professing it, and di- >
recting its development. After a time he put forth
a pamphlet, in which he gave the statement concern
ing this enlargement of Bible insight : "Loving God
with all our heart, mind and strength. This implies
that no wrong temper remains in the soul, and that
aU the thoughts, words and actions are governed by
pure love." Some enthusiastlcaUy declared that
they were perfect in all things, but against this folly
Wesley contended, claiming that one was still liable to
ignorance and mistakes. Not absolute perfection,
but Christian perfection was the claim. Not the per
fection of Adam before his fall, or of angels, he
taught, but the perfection in love, of fallible man.
The revival grew. Everywhere the tireless preach
ers went, their audiences gradually changed from
howling mobs to increasing masses of respectful,
eager listeners. One need was to supply the Increas
ing work with preachers. The three leaders, with
four or five clergy sometimes associated with them,
could by no means meet the demands. Among those
appointed leaders of classes and bands were found un
educated men who had learned the Bible well and
whose skill in teaching the way of salvation to their
rude listeners made them marked men. From teach
ing those small groups, like Wesley's mother at Ep
worth, they soon found themselves waited upon by
much enlarged audiences. Should the Methodist
leaders set these men to preaching.'' To do so they
had no recent precedent or any church authority.
At this time of uncertainty Susanna Wesley, so wise
and deep-souled, wrote to her son of Maxfield :

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 351
"John, take care what you do with respect to that
young man, for he is surely called of God to preach as
you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his
preaching." Plans of preaching to the newly organized societies
were made, to which these lay preachers were sent.
Wesley was not without historical instances in the far
past. Wyclif had sent out his "Poor Preachers, men
of the people to the people." Farther back still the
Friars of the thirteenth century had done work all
over England similar to this now beginning. Crude
was the preaching of these laymen, but effective in
leading the people to forsake their sins and alluring
to pure, unselfish lives. These men under Wesley's
direction studied hard, becoming proficient In theol
ogy and other fields. The revival touched the in
tellect of England. Not a few of the lay preachers
became able pulpit orators. John Nelson, the stone
mason, thrilled thousands with his burning eloquence,
and the converted saddlemaker, Samuel Bradburn,
rapt crowds by his preaching.
The relation of Methodism to the Anglican Church
was a burning one, being debated at the conferences
and elsewhere. Both Wesleys insisted that the Meth
odists attend its services, while their own services
must be held at hours different from the Establish
ment. For a long time Whitefield and the Countess
of Huntingdon held to the same way, but before
Whitefield's death had by legal action put themselves
outside that church. The Methodists began to wish
to have the Holy Communion administered by their

352 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
own preachers instead of being compeUed to go before
clergymen of questionable life for it. Wesley, having
become convinced that presbyters and bishops were
of the same ecclesiastical order, decided he was as
truly entitled to ordain men as any of the English
prelates. This opinion Charles Wesley hotly com
bated. But John, quietly taking the matter into his
own hands, ordained Dr. Coke to be superintendent
of Methodism in America and several others to ad
minister the sacrament In Scotland and in England.
It was because of this act that Lord Mansfield de
cided that Wesley had severed himself from the An
glican Church. But Wesley did not think so, deem
ing himself to the day of his death a dutiful son of
the mother church.
Charles Wesley, like his older brother, was a stir
ring, popular preacher, crowds waiting on his public
work. An Oxford graduate, he was earlier in the
Holy Club than John and had been ordained by an
English prelate. He easily took to the field like his
fellow evangelists. Like them, this finely strung
nature was compelled to meet mobs, to be stoned, be
fouled, misrepresented. With the others he became
a tireless itinerant. Always of the same spirit that
moved him In the Holy Club, he visited the jails and
prisons throughout his whole life, his last publication
put forth but three years before his death being
"Prayers for Condemned Malefactors." Successful
as he was as a preacher, his grandest help to the
revival must be set down to his hymns. All the lead
ers quickly saw the power in popular singing. The
poetic genius of the Wesley family found its richest

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 363
fruitage in Charles, though several others were sim
ilarly endowed.
George Whitefield was easily the orator of the new
religious life, although neither so profound or execu
tive as Wesley. Few men in all the Christian church
have possessed such high powers of public speaking.
Of humble origin, he worked his way through college,
was one of the Holy Club at Oxford, and while very
young obtained ordination. Soon the churches of
the large cities and towns were closed to his eloquent
preaching, but already crowds began collecting when
it was known that he was to speak; hence he would
preach to them wherever he could. Thus field preach
ing began. Whitefield rose to sublime oratory when
such masses waited upon him. Whitefield followed
the predestination teachings of Calvin, then dominant
in the Anglican Church. To this dark doctrine Wes
ley objected, following rather the teachings of the
Dutch theologian, Arminius, that man is free, not
under the law of necessity, and that salvation is fully
offered to all. Both Wesley and Whitefield being
deep-souled Englishmen, these differences of doctrine
could not fail to tax their love for each other. Still
in Christian fellowship each went on his chosen way.
Up and down England Whitefield went, arousing the
wUdest enthusiasm. England was too small for his
activities, so he passed to Scotland and Ireland and
across the sea to America, and everywhere masses
came to hearken and to amend their ways.
When soliciting funds for an orphan asylum
which he founded In Georgia his persuasive powers
were curiously shown. The close-fisted Franklin

364 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
emptied his pockets, regretting he had no more to
give. The nobility of England poured out golden
sovereigns. On one such occasion the copper coins
contributed by the poor had to be carried away by
the half-bushel. If fashionable crowds waited upon
him, however, mobs pelted him with rotten eggs,
stones, dead cats, and sometimes tried to drown his
voice with drums and other noise. In connection with
the Countess of Huntingdon and others he founded
the sect of Calvinistic Methodism, mostly in Wales.
This stream, alongside that distinctly Arminian, pos
sibly gave larger success to the whole movement.
Whitefield was in more sympathetic relations with the
nonconformist bodies than the Wesleys. In his
earlier labors Wesley was too close a churchman to
fraternize much with them. In 1770 Whitefield died
of exhaustion at Newburyport, Massachusetts, his
bones now lying under the pulpit of the Federal Street
Church. At his death a race mourned his passing.

CHAPTER XXXIV
In the early part of the eighteenth century all the
denominations in England needed the vivifying shock
of the Methodist movement. Still a few names shine
above the spiritual horizon. Isaac Watts, an Inde
pendent minister of London, is remembered for his
rich, strong hymns. It is said that when a young
minister he complained to a meeting of his fellow
preachers the lack of good h3Tnns. The retort was
made, "Give us something better, young man." He
did. Watts is justly distinguished as the father of
modern hymnology. His life, extending to near the
middle of the century, was one of physical suffering,
sometimes of mental anguish, but through it all pro
lific of good works. He divided that century of
hymn-writing with Charles Wesley, and so well did
each of these masters work that their spiritual songs
still outnumber in the various church hymnals those of
any other author. Watts, declared by Montgomery
to be the inventor of hymns in the English tongue,
doubtless surpasses In sublimity of thought and sweep
of wide vision his compeer, who in his turn surpasses
Watts in expressing God's love to fallen man. That
Pantheon of English authors, Westminster Abbey,
justly has a monument to this great Dissenter. His
hymns express many shades of devotion.
"From all that dwell below the skies"
"Great God attend while Zion sings"
365

356 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
"Sweet is the work, my God, my King"
"Am I a soldier of the cross"
"Joy to the world, the Lord is come"
"Welcome, sweet day of rest"
"Salvation, O the joyful sound"
"Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive"
"Alas and did my Savior bleed"
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun"
"The heavens declare thy glory, Lord"
"Why do we mourn departing friends"
"There is a land of pure delight"
Another great hymn writer, Philip Doddridge, was
contemporary with Watts and like him an Independ
ent minister. Indeed, nearly all the soul lyrics of
that century were composed by men in the dissenting
sects. As a hymn writer Doddridge should be put in
a lower place than Watts or Charles Wesley, but his
work will live. He was instrumental in establish
ing an academy for the education of dissenting minis
ters, being tutor in that at the same time that he was
pastor of a large church at Northampton. His
double labors wore him out before his time and
brought death at the age of forty-nine. His hymns,
usually composed upon some Scripture passage, were
sung by his congregation at the time of his delivering
the sermon on that text. Like others of that period
his hymns cover many phases of the spiritual life.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 357
"How gentle God's commands"
"I'll drop my burden at his feet"
"Hark the glad sound ! The Savior comes"
"Grace ! 'Tis a charming sound"
"O happy day that fixed my choice"
"Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve"
For a decade of years Charles Wesley was writing
hymns contemporary with Watts and Doddridge.
Watts was a hearty admirer of the young poet, say
ing of "Wrestling Jacob" that it was worth all the
verses that he himself had written. He was im
mensely prolific, his own poems and those of his
brother John, who excelled in the translation of Ger
man .and Latin hymns, being compiled in thirteen
volumes. Besides these printed ones it is said that
two thousand still exist in manuscript, Charles having
written six thousand in all. Out of those printed,
time has sifted hundreds of the best, which as helps
to many shades of devotion, appear destined to live on
in the coming centuries. His hymns were composed
in all sorts of places and under every imaginable con
dition of work and impulse of brain and heart. Of
that most popular hymn, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul,"
it is commonly said that he composed it In a spring
house, when hiding with his brother from a mob.
More probable is the suggestion that a stormy experi
ence on the Atlantic when going to Georgia with Gen
eral Oglethorpe gave him the thought. Being set to
easy popular music, another rich fact of the evan-

368 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
gelical renascence, the hymns were sung by the great
audiences waiting on the evangelist as weU as at fire
sides and in humble chapels. They are still sung, like
those of Watts, as widely as goes the English tongue.
The race can never let such soul songs as these perish :
"Jesus, lover of my soul"
"O for a thousand tongues to sing"
"Depth of mercy! Can there be"
"Father, I stretch my hands to thee"
"Arise, my soul, arise"
"A charge to keep I have"
"Come, O thou Traveler unknown"
"Servant of God, well done"
The early part of the century saw several books of
sacred songs issued and used. Nonconformists and
Anglicans had before clung closely to the use of
Psalms for devotional singing, various renderings of
these having been given out. Now there came a
gradual use of other songs. Some of the poems of
one Norris were set to music and used so much that in
1730 a tenth edition was demanded, giving a pleasant
glimpse of the people's devotion.
In 1700 Bishop Ken, a man of sweetest spirit, one
of the Nonjurors, gave to the world the "Evening
Hymn" and "Morning Hymn":
"Glory to thee, my God, this night"

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 369
"Awake, my soul, and with the sun"
Anne Steele, the daughter of a Baptist minister,
wrote many hymns, some of which still lend their com
fort: "Come ye that love the Savior's name"
"Father, whate'er of earthly bliss"
Out of Addison's Spectator have been transferred
to the hymn books ever since his time several of his
exquisitely expressed hymns :
"When all thy mercies, O my God"
"The spacious firmament on high"
Later in the century, after the revival was in full
sweep, a valuable issue of hymns then widely sung
and still used in part, came out under the name of
Olney Hmyns, thus named because most were written
on the Olney parish. Its minister was John Newton,
whose loyalty to Christ, after conversion from a very
vicious life, was of a piece with his former wickedness.
Cowper and Newton made the Olney Hymns im
mortal. The following popular and valuable hymns
are from that collection :
"God moves in a mysterious way"
"There is a fountain filled with blood"
"O for a closer walk with God"
"Glorious things of thee are spoken"

360 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Samuel Stennett, a dissenting minister in London,
also wrote hymns at that time which have been and
are widely sung.
"Majestic sweetness sits enthroned" ;
"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand"
Other great hymns were composed during that
period, single ones of precious worth enough to keep
the author's memory immortal and to carry choice
benefactions down the ages. Such was Pope's ode,
"The Dying Christian to His Soul," and Thomas
Oliver's "God of Abraham," which was set to music
and sung by the Jews in London.
Edward Perronet, a friend of the Wesleys and a
dissenting minister, will never be forgotten for having
given to mankind "AU Hail the Power of Jesus'
name." Augustus Toplady, a contemporary but an op
ponent of the Wesleys, will live in men's gratitude for
one hymn, — "Rock of Ages Cleft for Me."
The hymns composed and popularly sung In
any epoch deeply affect the social. Intellectual
and moral life, as well as politics and religion.
History has instances of the power of ballads
and patriotic songs to revive and inspire, and
here in the eighteenth century can easily be seen
the elevating power of popular, widely sung
spiritual songs. The masses were touched with the
sense of fellowship, forsook their vices, and learned
spiritual truths of high value. Besides reaching the
masses their priceless worth has enriched religion and

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 361
added to the value and perpetuation of high liter
ature. The church party, deeming all dissent to harbor
disloyalty, explains the opposition of the clergy, the
opinion of statesmen, and the brutality of the mobs.
Doubtless the union of church and state at that time
gave a sacred sanction of the laws, in this way being
beneficial to the nation. The worth of a regular sys
tem of parishes covering, at least in theory, the whole
land, each one supplied with an educated man as rec
tor or curate to direct the worship of so large a
share of the people, to baptize, marry and bury them,
could not fail of being very great. Formally, at
least, the religious life found constant expression.
Inscribed over the door of the Bank of England Is
"The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."
The marble floor of St. George's Hall, Liverpool, has
in the mosaics in Latin, "From God We Received all
this Health and Greatness."
By the middle of the century the evangelical move
ment in the Established Church was fairly started.
Of course the foremost influence in this was the
Methodist movement. In addition a few intense
clergymen, deploring the general laxity of religion
everywhere, determined to do all they could to remedy
the sad condition. Advance and reform were in the
air. John Fletcher by his brilliancy as a writer
and debater, became the able defender of Wesley's
teachings. Fletcher's checks to Antinomianism had
possibly more to do in relegating Calvin's monstrous
tenets to the dust heap than any other writings ever
produced. Associated with the evangelical move-

362 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ment were prominent people, WUliam Wilberforce in
his magnificent contention with human slavery, Sir
Richard Hill, Lady Huntingdon and others of
nobility and wealth. Lord Dartmouth, who founded
a great college in the colonies, was an out-and-out
Methodist, working with aU the promoters of the for
ward movement. Hannah More and later Elizabeth
Fry, each in her own sphere of kindly deeds, were
fellow workers with the noble people for the good
of Englishmen. Lecky says of the Evangelicals :
"They infused into the English Church a new fire
and passion of devotion, kindled a fervent spirit of
philanthropy, raised the standard of clerical duty and
completely altered the whole tone and tendency of the
preaching of the ministers. Before the close of the
century the evangelical movement had become the al
most undisputed center of religious activity in England,
and it continued so until the rise of the Tractarian move
ment of 18SS."
In spite of this spirit many of the parishes and
dioceses were sadly neglected. May says of the
clergy in his "Constitutional History":
"They farmed, shot the squire's partridges, drank
port wine, played cards, but did little to search out the
needs of their flocks."
One church historian says:
"The spiritual courts were the curse of the poor, the
jest of the rich, and the abhorrence of the wise and good
even among the clergy themselves."

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 363
Owing to the rapid increase of population at this
time, a problem was presented which the national
church was ill prepared to meet. The use of ma
chinery in manufactures drew into the industrial
centers crowds of workmen and their famUies and it
was soon found impossible to offer to these masses
church accommodations. The Methodists and Non
conformists, by quickly building cheap meeting
houses, were supplying the need in part, these manu
facturing towns becoming centers of dissent and
social unrest. Soon half the parishes besides their
Anglican Church had one or more dissenting chapels.
Nor were the universities where the higher education
of the nation centered, a whit above the condition
of the ruling classes. Neglect of teaching until the
professors gave up the pretense of doing so, neglect
of study and examinations, marked the life of both
great schools. Gibbon declared that his time in
college was the most unprofitable of his life, finding
there ignorance, vice, idleness and infidelity.
Even before the Wesleys and Whitefield had en
tered upon their revival successes a similar revival
had begun in Wales. Griffith Jones, a clergyman of
the Established Church, aroused by the needs of the
masses, preaching widely, called the people, like
another John the Baptist to repentance and a new
life. Of course he broke the rules of decorum and
good church discipline, for which he was repeatedly
tried before the ecclesiastical courts. But nothing
could stop him. One of his methods to overcome
the gross ignorance of the people was to found
circulating schools, the schoolmasters going like itin-

364 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
erants from place to place, holding the schools for
a few weeks and then passing on. In these schools,
besides the rudiments, the people were taught to read
the Bible in Welsh, Bibles for this purpose being sup
plied by the Society for the Propagation of Christian
Knowledge. In a short time Jones had hundreds of
schools and thousands of pupUs. To supply
teachers he opened a normal school into which only
religious persons were admitted. At his death, 1761,
he left no less than 3496 schools with 150,000 pupUs.
Not long after this movement began, another man,
Howell Harris, became associated with Jones in his
revival work. Harris had been at Oxford, but left
in disgust and, layman as he was, began preaching
all over Wales justification by faith, declaring
against the evils present, raising great excitement
and facing murderous mobs. As the Methodists
came into the principality they encouraged and aided
these men, while some noble-spirited Anglican min
isters also helped them. Daniel Rowland's name
shines among this class of helpers. People would go
sixty or a hundred miles to hear him preach. Yet
with all the good he did he was later ejected from
the Anglican ministry. In a few years the revival
took organized form In the Calvinistic Methodist
Church there, of which he was made superintendent.
Whitefield and the Countess Huntingdon were active
and efficient in this organization. Nonconformity
soon stood ahead of other denominations in Wales.
In Scotland as well as in Wales and England a
revival arose spontaneously among workers. Be
fore the great revivalists of England visited Scot-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 365
land some of the Presbyterian ministers were aroused,
going over the country as heralds of the new evangel.
Among others were the two Erskine brothers and a
minister named Robe. People fell to the earth in
startling convulsions, screaming, weeping, praying.
Usually when these phenomena ended it was to find
the subjects happy and praising God, and hearty
service for God afterwards marked them.
The revival marked an era in the religious Hfe of
Scotland. Family and church worship was set up,
the young were led to earnestness of action and vice
lessened. But the English revivalists were not
heartily received, John Wesley complaining in his
journal of the coldness of his reception by both
ministers and people. Only a few Methodist socie
ties were formed In Scotland. Still respectful crowds
attended the field-preaching of Whitefield. One
evening he preached to thousands till eleven o'clock,
at another time the masses listening to him stayed
an hour past midnight. In such gatherings prayer
and praise could be heard in all parts of the fields.
The religious condition of Ireland during the lat
ter half of the eighteenth century, while presenting
proofs of progress, was most deplorable. The Estab
lishment was the only church recognized by law. A
pamphlet written In 1760 said that sixteen hundred
of its churches were In ruins, six hundred others
standing ready to fall, and there were only five hun
dred fifty Anglican clergy in Ireland, these being
mostly curates with pay at forty pounds a year.
The Methodists visited the island and introduced
more liberal sentiments. The Moravians and Pala-

366 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
tines from the continent also had busy people and
thoughtful preaching in their colonies. A wider
diffusion of knowledge and general spirit of toler
ance were effectively reducing objections to religious
rights. Several converted Irishmen were teaching
and preaching in the native tongue, Graham and
Ouseley being able to do this work. One Itinerant,
John McBurney, was set upon by the mob, beaten,
trampled under foot and so injured that in a few
days he died. He was the first Methodist martyr.
England's need of soldiers for the American War of
Independence and the French Revolution moved the
king and statesmen to more liberal motives. Laws
were neglected and penalties winked at. The govern
ment, having created a Catholic diocese at Quebec
and mitigated greatly the laws against English
Catholics, was disposed, as the years passed, to grant
relief to the Irish Catholics.
As the century passed toward Its close a patriotic
movement was joined with the religious. To guard
the country from French Invasion volunteer corps
were formed; these, when armed and drUled, con
veyed to the Irish a sense of their power, and In
1782 demands were made by delegates from these
armed men for civil freedom, the rights of private
judgment in religion were urged, and the uplift of
oppressive laws from the Catholics commended.
Wolfe Tone, in 1791, founded the Society of United
Irishmen composed of both Catholics and Protestants,
aiming among other things at equal representation
in the Irish ParHament. A few years later a Rehef
BiU gave certain franchises permitting Catholics to

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 367
bear arms, granting freedom in property and allow
ing the Catholic youth to attend colleges. In Ulster
province the Protestants formed the Orangemen's
Associations to expel Catholics, engendering intense,
lasting hatred and causing much suffering. When
in 1800 union was made with Great Britain, and the
Irish by that union became citizens of that country,
a vast gain in privileges was obtained.
The soul hunger of the people as the decades came
and went was being met by a great variety of means.
The leaders of the Methodist movement exerted a
profound influence everywhere over the three nations.
Nonconformists grew more intense. The evangelical
party In the Anglican Church also crowded for bet
ter conditions. The reflex influence upon the
mother country of the colonies in America In their
tremendous struggle for independence and in the
great liberal commonwealth they established, holding
so many things free which the advanced thought of
England had longed for, — free speech, free press, free
churches, full franchise, and many other rights, —
profoundly affected for better things still the home
section of the Anglo-Saxon race. When George
Third came to the throne In 1760 his deep piety,
fidelity to his wife, opposition to immorality, and
constant attendance upon religious services stood
in hopeful contrast to the morals of his father. He
was resigned under misfortunes, brave, sympathetic
with the revival of religion, and pleased with the de
velopment of Sunday Schools. He encouraged John
Howard in prison reform. It is believed that the
great unrest caused In England by the French Revo-

368 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
lutlon and by the writings of Paine and others was
aUayed by the religious revival. In 1779 a Relief
BiU was passed, by which dissenting ministers and
students at the universities need not subscribe to the
Thirty-Nine Articles, only declare themselves Prot
estants and Christians, believers in both the Old
and New Testaments. By this act Protestant Dis
senters in Ireland were also relieved.
Among the fruits of the revival and evangelical
spirit were the labors of Henry Thornton, who in
his elegant home at Clapham gathered reformers and
philanthropists, making up what has since been
known as the Clapham sect. In these gatherings
were discussed slavery, peace, toleration, and kin
dred matters likely to be brought forward at a
time of such spiritual renascence. Hamilton took
these matters into Parliament. Ministers of the
Established Church and Dissenters worked together
at Clapham. Here Wilberforce and Clarkson gained
cheer and assistance in their long struggle against
the slave trade. Here Granville Sharpe was pre
pared to become president of the first Bible Society.
Their organ. The Christian Observer, was edited by
Zachary Macaulay. Missions were In their plans,
Henry Martyn working with John Venn in project
ing the Church Missionary Society. To preach to
this gathering Whitefield was often called, as was
also John Wesley, whose great Catholic spirit and
broad vision were of value and encouragement.

CHAPTER XXXV
The Quakers had long been persistent opposers
of the unspeakable slave trade, but money being in
its continuance, state and society and church were
all deaf to their appeals. As early as 1727 they
entered the conflict, never ceasing through the
decades. In 1774 David Hartley offered a bill
in the Commons that the slave trade was con
trary to the laws of God and the rights of
man, but it was easily defeated. The same year
John Wesley published his tract, "Thoughts on
Slavery," giving to the world the famous saying,
"It is the sum of all villainies." Pitt and Wesley
sustained Wilberforce in his magnificent contention.
The horrible insurrection of the negroes in San
Domingo scared some of the friends of the movement.
The acquisition of England of the West India Is
lands led to great increase of the lucrative trade.
Protests seemed vain. More than fifty thousand
negroes a year were carried to the West Indies,
the climax being reached In 1786 when ninety-seven
thousand of the poor wretches were transported by
Christian Englishmen to the atrocities of slavery.
Such Injustice began opening the eyes of England.
A society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was
organized in London in 1787, at first having but
twelve members ; among them appear the names of
GranvUle Sharp, Wilberforce, Clarkson and Zachary
Macaulay. In 1804 Wilberforce wanted to bring
369

370 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
in a bUl to put an end to the slave trade, to which
Pitt objected, promising instead a royal proclama
tion forbidding English ships to bring slaves to the
Dutch colonies, but this order did not come out. As
Fox came into power he made the abolition of the
slave trade one of the foremost pledges of his policy.
Not until the Granville ministry in 1807 was the
measure carried forbidding British vessels, seamen
or capital to be used in the trade.
Another product of the religious revival was the
broad purpose and plans to make life more com
fortable and elevating to the lower classes of Great
Britain. The inventions of Arkwright, Compton
and others setting in motion the great streams of
modern manufacturing, the life In towns, and the
new conditions in many ways caused much distress.
Noble philanthropists, however, came forth to meet
these conditions. A very angel of mercy in this
work was Hannah More, who was led into it by
Wilberforce. On moving to her new country home
a few miles from Bristol in Gloucester, she found the
parishes round about were almost entirely neglected
and the people little better than pagans. She set
up schools to teach the ignorant, but for such a
deed was prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts.
Persisting, she gathered in seven years more than
sixteen hundred pupils into her schools, so chang
ing the people by her humane ministries that the
assizes, before crowded with cases, now had no crimes
to punish. Her works and writings attracted at
tention at London where she was called to visit,
making the acquaintance and winning the sympathy

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 371
of Walpole, Dr. Johnson and other notables. Her
deeds of kindness were copied widely and multitudes
of poor people felt the uplift given.
John Howard's toils in prison reform were of a
piece for human good with those of Hannah More.
Before his work the condition of England's prisons
was vile beyond comprehension. In 1773, having
been made High Sheriff of Bedfordshire, he at once
took steps to reform the prisons of his own county,
and found their condition most astounding. At
tention called to these terrible things, an investiga
tion was ordered by Parliament, and Howard's re
port contained masses of the most horrible facts.
Howard died from exposure in Russian prisons
in 1790, but the reform did not cease. Out
of it have come the admirable condition of
jails and prisons, the strict attention paid to
the physical and moral condition of the inmates, the
deference given their spiritual claims, together with
the great efforts made to reform them.
The worth of the evangelical revival through those
decades cannot be computed. When the best inter
ests of the people were shot through and through with
the teachings of Christianity that progress would
be highest and most hopeful. The supreme value
of institutions is fully reached when it applies to all
the people. In 1779 mass meetings were held giving
expression to public opinion and thought similar to
those held in the fiery time of Cromwell. One of
the petitions was that the American War be stopped.
Later the people were asking for reform in Parlia
ment and for representatives from the counties and

372 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
from the great cities, London and others. Burke
saw there was "a revolution In sentiment, manners
and moral aspirations," but was wrong in thinking
they were aU for the worse. Better things were
coming Into sight. So strong did the people become
in national affairs that Pitt found his real strength
lay with them. The attempts of George Third to
establish supreme dominance similar to that of the
Stuarts were dissipated by this power of the people.
During the American War the feeling of the
Brotherhood of man arose more fully than before,
for In its clearing vision the Christian consciousness
was coalescing with deeper political insight. This
high teaching of the New Testament had never, in
a country of classes and aristocracy been developed,
its awakening now being a boon to all. It lighted
the way for the trial of Warren Hastings, In which
that unscrupulous East Indian governor and op
pressor was shown up by the forensic genius of Ed
mund Burke. It was Burke's determination and the
demand of Englishmen that the same justice be
given to the poor Hindu as was accorded by law to
the poor Englishman. One result of that trial was
to assure British protection to its remotest subject
in all parts of its mighty empire. Fox taught
British legislators that the colonies, to be best re
tained as parts of the empire, must be mostly left
to govern themselves. Out of this broad truth has
come, with other blessings, that of religious liberty
in those colonies, growing to greatness ever since
in different parts of the world.
Starting in this epoch on the course which ever

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 373
since has been of inestimable worth to humanity, was
the Sunday School. Robert Raikes is usually
credited with originating this movement in 1784,
but it is now known that he followed suggestions of
what had been already begun. Fourteen years be
fore a Miss Ball of High Wycombe had organized
a Sunday School, writing thus to Wesley, "The
children meet twice a week every Sunday and Mon
day." That was in 1770. Even before that date
Sunday Schools were begun in America. Another
Methodist woman suggested to Raikes that schools
could be set up on Sunday to teach the children of
their city who were growing up in ignorance and
vice. She herself walked to the parish church at
the head of the motley mass of children they had
collected. Publicity being given to this new form
of work, it was at once caught up in many parts
of the kingdom. Within two years of the inception
of the work Great Britain had two hundred schools
with two hundred thousand Sunday School pupUs.
All the sects took up the plan, organizing schools
in every part of the country. Indeed Sunday
Schools became an established way of teaching the
Bible in all parts of the Christian world, a stream
from that fountain ever enlarging to the present
time. At the opening of the twentieth century
there were reported at the World's Sunday School
Convention at Jerusalem more than twenty-three
millions of persons in these Sunday Schools of
Protestantism. The press helped reform. It made books com
mon and cheap. Women, forming Blue Stocking

374 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Clubs, took deeper interest in literary matters, aid
ing greatly in refining literature and helping for
ward religion as well as gaining culture for them
selves. There was a discouraging lack of libraries.
The revivalists made constant use of the press, not
alone in controversy, but for the direct good of the
masses. Wesley's pen was kept hot writing tracts,
pamphlets, books, notes on the Gospels, and other
publications designed for the use of the people
reached by him and his itinerants.
In reading of modern missions one sees a revival
of the spirit actuating the tireless toilers in that
field through the earlier centuries of Christianity,
as well as those in medieval centuries. Among
modern missionaries has been shown a courage sur
passing that of warriors on the field of blood, and
a supreme faith in the power of truth to lift up men
and women and meet the cry of the human soul.
The two societies already organized were Hmited in
means, workers and enthusiasm, but through the
century did noble work for Wales and the Danish
Mission in Tranguebar. By mutual consent the
Christian Knowledge Society pushed its plans east
ward, while the Propagation Society pushed its plans
westward. Especially did the latter work In terri
tory which is now the United States. Indian tribes,
the Iroquois and others, were reached with the gos
pel, and spiritual aid was given to the colonists, the
Quakers, Congregatlonalists and negroes. In North
Carolina Rev. Clement Hall, supported by this
society on thirty pounds a year, went among the
destitute pioneers, having traveled in eight years, it

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 376
is said, fourteen thousand miles, preached eight hun
dred times and baptized six thousand people. Bishop
Berkley and others attempted to found a college
to prepare men for the mission field, but they were
not successes. From her college at Trevecca the
Countess of Huntingdon sent out to Georgia a band
of missionaries designed to carry forward the work
of Whitefield in that province. They worked with
success among the blacks and scattered settlers down
to the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, when
they returned to England. Their place in part was
then taken by Francis Asbury in his tireless travel
ing through the colonies.
Dr. Thomas Coke, one of Wesley's ablest preachers,
was strongly drawn toward mission plans and work.
Unable for the time to go eastward, he went westward
instead, a storm drifting his ship to the West India
Islands. At once beginning work there among the
blacks, he broadened plans according to his oppor
tunities until he made those islands Into a most prom
ising mission field. After the Revolutionary War,
being sent by Wesley to United States as joint
superintendent with Asbury of the fast-developing
Methodist Church of that country, he returned to
England several times to collect money and to in
terest people in the West India missions. Finally,
when sixty-six years old, determined to start a mis
sion in the east but unable to collect money for it,
he devoted his own considerable fortune to that ob
ject, starting for India with several Irish mission
aries, but he died on shipboard and was buried be
neath the waters of the Indian Ocean.

376 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
These preliminary steps, feeble and disjointed
though they seem, were leading to the great plans
for missionary work, soon to take form in England.
A humble shoemaker, WUHam Carey, reading with
avidity books of travel and discovery, was deeply
troubled that so many peoples described in them
should be lacking the light of Christianity. Going
to a meeting of ministers at Northampton, Carey
proposed as a subject for discussion the duty of
Christians to spread a knowledge of the gospel
among heathen people. To this novel request, the
moderator cried out, "Young man, sit down. When
God pleases to convert the heathen he will do it with
out your aid or mine!" Persisting in his purpose,
Carey reached success, for in 1792 the Baptist mis
sionary society was formed in the parlor of a widow,
Mrs. Beebe Wallis. The first subscription to this
new society amounted to 13£, 2s, 6d. Within eight
months Carey with his family was on the way to
India. After studying the Bengalee and Sanscrit
languages for five years, in 1801 he was called to the
professorship of Mahratta and Sanscrit in the new
college founded at Calcutta to educate the natives,
where he remained for thirty years. Before his
death in 1834 no less than forty languages had re
ceived the Bible in whole or in part from his busy
press at Serampore, thus making that book accessible
to two hundred million Indians. The East India
Company virulently opposed the entrance of Baptist
missions into their domain, and later refused to
carry the missionaries in the company's ships. Its
charter having to be renewed in 1813, strenuous

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 377,
efforts of those interested caused the government to
put into the charter provisions granting liberty of
missionary work and compelling the company to hold
its ships open to the missionaries.
Three years later than the beginning of the Bap
tist Missionary Society, the London Missionary
Society was organized. The design was not to have
it under the auspices of any single sect, though later
its direction fell mostly to the lot of the Independ
ents. It established missions in various parts of the
world and had the honor of sending the first Prot
estant missionary to China. In 1807 Robert Mor
rison was sent there to put the Bible into the native
language. It was some years before a single con
vert was made. Not satisfied with these openings
the London Society in 1818 sent a company to
Madagascar. Abundant success at first crowned
their efforts, but a pagan queen coming to the
throne, persecution set in. Still Christianity was
not stamped out, the persecuted natives gaining con
verts through a quarter century of storm. Past the
middle of the century that queen died and the mission
was again opened with large results.
The third great missionary society in England or
ganized before the eighteenth century closed was that
of the Anglican Church. At first the specified ob
ject was to work in western Africa, but after a while
world-wide fields were entered.
The Scot Presbyterians, not to be outdone in this
beneficence, as early as 1709 established at Edin
burgh the Scottish Society for Propagating Chris
tian Knowledge. Its design at first was to carry the

378 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
gospel to the needy people in the Highlands and in
the Scottish islands. Later their plans and vision
broadened and efforts were made to Christianize the
American Indians. In Scotland as in England the
close of the eighteenth century saw the formation of
a Scottish missionary society, and the Glasgow Mis
sionary Society was started the same year.

CHAPTER XXXVI
Dissent in the meantime was pushing its vocation
for rights and freedom and higher religious life.
The Unitarians started work. Two men arose
among them whose ability and attainments attracted
wide notice, — Price and Priestly. Their writings
entitled them to respectful hearing by all the land.
Both sympathized with the promise of democracy as
seen in the French Revolution, since they recognized
that Christianity was allied to that principle.
Though a harmless man and a most philanthropic
spirit Priestly was attacked by brutal mobs, his
invaluable collection of scientific books, notes and ap
paratus destroyed by fire set by the mob while he
had to hide for his life. Finding himself not safe
in England, he fled to America, while those traducing
him were promoted by the King. But much of Eng
land's heart was with Priestly. After his house was
burned he was deluged with sympathetic letters and
resolutions sent up from committees from all parts
of the kingdom.
By law the Unitarians were still denied rights
which other Dissenters held, being unable to find
relief even under the Test Act or under the Con
venticle Act. A bUl brought forward by Fox to
grant them the privilege of those laws was lost in
1792 by a vote of more than two to one. Both
Burke and Pitt opposed this biU. So heavy was the
opposition of the Established Church to the abolish-
379

380 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ment of those acts that even Pitt, then Prime Minis
ter, decided it would be unwise at that time to arouse
the animosity of the church people. The French
Revolution made men of broad statesmanship more
timid than usual. Toleration was slow in coming,
but coming it was.
The evangelical revival had as one of its fruits
much clarifying controversy over theological ques
tions. Dr. Samuel Clarke became satisfied that
Jesus and the Holy Spirit were not declared to be
God but inferior to God the Father. He was ably
answered by Dr. Waterland. Priestly also entered
the contest, calling out many replies. Indeed the
Unitarians, like the Deists of a preceding age, were
free lances in the theological battlefield.
The Catholics, though few in number (reckoned
at this time at about one hundred eighty thousand),
were powerful by family importance, wealth and
persistence for rights. There were four times as
many Baptists and five times as many Independents
in England. The Catholics suffered sectarian
animosities with dread of interference from Rome
and with fear of disloyalty. But there was a soften
ing of spirit towards this people, though most of
the nonconformists looked askance at them. Efforts
were constantly made to broaden that softening
spirit. In 1778, on motion of Sir George SavIUe, a
bill passed both houses without one negative to
repeal the Act of King William's time designed to
prevent the further growth of popery. This relief
bill at once fired the Scot heart, for in that country
the bitterness against the Catholics exceeded that of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 381
England. Fierce action of the synods, fiery pam
phlets by the thousand, raised a perfect fury of
feeling, riots occurring in Edinburgh and in Glas
gow. If one sympathized with the bill he was at
tacked. With disastrous results this heat reached Eng
land. A young Scot peer, Lord George Gordon, in
London set in motion great masses of the people who
went to the Parliament House in angry mood, cry
ing, "No popery," insulting members entering the
building, wrecking carriages, howling about Parlia
ment, while Peers and Commons sat In fear of their
lives. Proceeding from noise to violence they put
London for days at the mercy of the drunken mob,
who burned and pillaged at will.
Lord George Gordon was tried, but it was shown
that he did not anticipate such extreme results and
that he had offered his services to the government
to stop the riot. In the years immediately follow
ing Parliament showed that the mob had not In
timidated that body. Within three years another
relief bill passed both houses without dissent, abolish
ing laws against recusants, granting free worship
and free schools on being registered, removing re
strictions on wills and the double land tax, with per
mission to practice law before the courts. But no
monastic order was to be established. Pitt tried to
get further favors for the Irish Catholics, but the
King being greatly opposed to such leniency, Pitt
threw up his office and a new ministry was placed
in power with the distinct purpose not to bring up
the Catholic question. The King, considering his

382 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
coronation oath to preclude all favors to Catholics,
tried to pledge members of the ministry not to pro
pose any further concessions to the Catholics, but
this the stout Englishmen refused.
As the nineteenth century dawned, there came to
Englishmen larger views of life, politics and religion.
The evangelical revival fired the religious conscious
ness, the increase of wealth opened new vistas to
personal hopes and endeavors, the struggle with
Napoleon taught strength and confidence. It is
said that at least a thousand clergy of the Estab
lished Church were found in the evangelical wing.
The agitation for better things led Parliament to
repeal laws regarding Quakers taking oaths, also
the hateful Five MUe Act. As far back as 1753 a
law had been made that marriages should be
solemnized only in a parish church with Anglican
ritual after bans had been published three times, and
this law was kept through more than a third of the
nineteenth century. The hounded Unitarians, shut
out even from the Toleration Act, were granted in
1813 aU the liberties of other Dissenters. In 1828
Lord John Russell in spite of the opposition of the
Duke of Wellington's government, succeeded at last
in getting the repeal of the Test Act and the Cor
poration Act, two laws that had been active in keep
ing a large share of England's good men from par
ticipation in national matters. It is said that at
the end of the second decade England had three mil
lion Dissenters.
So many obnoxious laws had been repealed that at
last in 1829 an attempt at Catholic emancipation

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 383
succeeded. Dissenters, aided by the press and by
many leading statesmen, showed most active sym
pathy. O'Connell, the Irish patriot, expressed
heartUy his appreciation of aid from Dissenters.
All, whether Churchmen or Dissenters, had been
compeUed to pay tithes, but this law in 1836 was so
changed that the tithes could be commuted into a
land tax by voluntary act of each parish. Within
fifteen years nearly all the parishes of England had
voted this change. Soon, too, in Ireland a like law
was effected with similar good results. A Quaker
having been elected to Parliament in 1833 was per
mitted to take his seat on affirmation. Further on,
two Jews, having been elected to Parliament, were
seated amidst many expressions of hearty welcome,
though up to that time denied the privilege of a
place in that body. But church rates, the taxes
for keeping churches In repair, were deemed unjust
by Dissenters, since they gave money to build and
keep in repair their own churches. Bills for release
from those rates presented at the first third of the
century failed of passing, as did others after the
middle of the century.
With so many obstacles removed from the paths
of free progress of the religious life, It is to be
expected that the various bodies of religious people
would grow in numbers and new bodies start into
being. A church section of a national census or
dered in 1851 gave a most astonishing view of that
progress. At that date the various Methodist
bodies had 11,007 chapels with sittings for 2,194,298
people. The Independents had 3244 chapels and

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the Baptists 2789, with sittings to the number of
752,346. The Catholics a few years later had 574
houses of worship. In England and Wales together
aU the denominations had 34,467 places of worship,
of which the Anglicans owned 14,077. The total ac
commodations were for 9,467,738 people, of which
the Establishment offered 4,428,388.
The missionary spirit so grandly begun near the
close of the eighteenth century was carried forward
with increasing zeal. Commerce extending, missions
went with it and often led the way. In part the mis
sionaries offset some of the evils going with traders,
especially traffic in rum and opium, and nameless
vices. The Methodist movement was missionary in its
very nature and in its earliest plans. For years so
pressing was the work in Great Britain that no at
tention could be paid to foreign peoples. Wesley
welcomed Dr. Coke as the man designed to carry
on the peculiar vocation of the movement, outside
Great Britain, while he himself confined his labors
to the British Isles ; hence Coke's work in United
States, the northern provinces, the West Indies, and
the consummation of his hopes when in 1813 he
finally planned a. mission for India. After his death
his companions opened a mission in Ceylon, the
locality assigned them. The Commandant of that
island. Lord Molesworth, attending their first serv
ice was happily converted. From that time he
greatly aided the young mission.
The Wesleyan Missionary Society was not

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 385
formally organized, like the early Baptist Society
and others, untU 1817. But at the date of formal
organization Wesleyan missions had been in opera
tion forty years with a corps of a hundred mis
sionaries, their fields extending as far as AustraHa.
The rapidly developing work called for great execu
tive talent to conduct the business of the society,
finding this in Jabez Bunting, who had nobly as
sociated with him Richard Watson and Robert
Newton. The General Baptists, those accepting the Armin
ian views of redemption, founded a missionary society
in 1816, being led to this by a man worthy to be
named with Coke and Carey, Rev. J. G. Pike. Their
first mission was started at Orlssa, India, close be
side the famous idol, Juggernaut. The usual con
flict with such gross idolatry took place, the mis
sionaries preaching and teaching and showing a bet
ter way to those people so devoutly devoted to their
imperfect religion. The missionaries also founded
villages of converted natives whose loss of caste cost
them their means of very existence. The Bible was
in due time translated into the language of Orlssa.
In the education of the masses there had never
been a satisfactory condition. The nonconformist
sects had set up through various parts of the coun
try seminaries especially for the education of their
young men designed for the ministry, though many
others found their culture in these schools. They
were the more imperative since conscientious Dis
senters, unwilling to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine

386 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Articles required to enter the National University,
must find their higher culture in such seminaries.
The evangelical uplift had created a desire in the
masses for more knowledge, that being one of the
profoundest results of that grand movement. Sun
day Schools were of much worth to the children, but
there was needed a system of education beyond them.
In the last years of the eighteenth century, a young
Quaker, Lancaster, seeing the need of education,
opened a private school at Southwark, his father's
home. Of limited means, he was soon perplexed how
to carry on his school, grown so popular that at the
end of two years he had a thousand pupils. He
conceived the plan of using the older pupils to teach
the younger ones, thus at a very Hmited expense doing
his noble work. His system and schools became im
mensely popular, so much so as finally to attract the
notice and commendation of the King. Strange as
it may seem his beneficence to the young and aspir
ing was strongly opposed by the Anglican clergy,
who might seem desirous of keeping the working
classes ignorant to be more subservient to church
dominance. Societies were formed grouped around
the liberal and helpful Ideas of Lancaster and also
about the restrictive plans of the hierarchy.
Broughan in 1820 asked permission to attain better
schools in Great Britain with each schoolmaster
nominated by the clergyman and two or three parish
ioners. The teacher must be a communicant of the
Established Church and the clergyman was to fix
the course of study. To these exclusive plans and
others the Dissenters objected so strongly that

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 387
Broughan withdrew his request to offer the bill.
Other plans to formulate a working system gave the
Anglican Church such predominance that objections
by the Dissenters caused nothing to be done.

CHAPTER XXXVII
Several things combined to start the trend in
church Hfe known as the Oxford Movement, also
sometimes called the Tractarian Movement. About
the date of the Reform Bill certain intense men at
Oxford were aroused for the welfare of the Anglican
Church. They feared the drift toward liberalism
in its Evangelical wing, seeing danger also from
German rationalistic teachings that were spreading
over all Europe. Fear was further fostered by the
agitation brought forward by Catholic Emancipa
tion, finally obtained in 1829. The suppression of
ten bishoprics in Ireland by the Parliament and
other steps by that body were very suggestive of
Erastianism, that continuous bogy of Churchmen.
This Oxford group had its fears crystallized by a
sermon delivered by John Keble in 1833 on National
Apostasy in which he claimed that the Reform Bill,
Catholic Emancipation, and suppression of the ten
bishoprics placed the Establishment in grave danger.
Newman always declared that this sermon was the
beginning of the Oxford Movement.
Soon after that sermon John Henry Newman,
John Keble, Hurrell Froude and others meeting In
the parsonage of Hugh Rose at Hadleigh laid out a
plan to write a series of tracts for the public, dis
cussing the issues then coming to the surface. In
these tracts they spoke of the true church, its claims
and imperfections, the shortcomings in all branches
388

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 389
of Christianity and aUied matters. These Tracts
for the Times, scholarly, brilliant, being brought out
in rapid succession, to the number of ninety, at
tracted to themselves much attention. No. 90, writ
ten by Newman, claimed that the Thirty-Nine Ar
ticles were not directed against the Catholic Church
but against heresies earlier than the Council of
Trent. The Tracts showed such a trend toward
Rome that the bishop in whose diocese the church
stood demanded that they should cease, and as good
churchmen the writers obeyed. In that No. 90
Newman claimed also that one could sign the Thirty-
Nine Articles and yet hold most of the Roman
Catholic tenets. Other prelates and the University
authorities, being aroused by the Romeward tend
ency of the Tracts, took vigorous steps to head off
this drift. The Tractarians however made abun
dant use of the press in other ways.
Up to this time the Tractarian writers and agita
tors had claimed to be the most devoted Churchmeni
Their studies and writings had led them to believe
that the church rites were the means of reaching
the highest religious life. Hence they insisted on
baptismal regeneration, clerical absolution, with the
confessional, the worship of Mary, transubstantia
tlon, celebration of the mass in ornate robes, in pen
ance and purgatory. The opposition aroused was
not alone with the prelates and universities, for the
evangelical part of the Anglican Church and Dis
senters, the liberals and orthodox of various views,
strongly repudiated the innovations.
Seeing the need of a revival in the Anglican

390 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Church, the Oxford group proposed steps toward it.
By them the church of the far past was to be
brought down to the present by a revival of its rites
and teachings. Driven to a study of the church
before the Reformation, Newman, Ward and others
came gradually to consider the Catholic Church as
the only true one. Hoping to lead the Anglican
Church to accept the ceremonies of the medieval
church, they labored to that end. In this work they
soon led some of the laity to join them, especially
those of wealth and rank whose money enabled them
to have leisure for such activities. However, not all
the titled ones went with the movement, for in Lord
Shaftsbury's diary is found written :
"Lord, purge the church of these men, who, while
their hearts are in the Vatican still eat the bread of
the Establishment and undermine law."
The rabble dubbed them Sacramentarians. The
mob showed its opposition by going to a London
church, howling the responses, hissing, whistling, let
ting loose drugged dogs, and using other base means
of disturbance. Punch made jeering cartoons,
while leading papers attacked the Tractarians. Out
of the Tractarian movement grew two important
results, one a drift toward Rome the other into High
Church Hfe.
Newman's crucial Tract, No. 90 came out in 1839,
while he was rector of St. Mary's Church, Oxford.
All by this time saw his leadership. Indeed, he was
a natural born leader, yet so not by intrigue and
dominating force so much as by a singular transpar-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 391
ent character, high genius and progressive ideas.
His sermons at St. Mary's exerted a profound in
fluence upon the under-graduates and tutors of Ox
ford. He had little ambition to lead in a reform,
but really in working for it led all others. Many,
becoming his followers when under the charm of his
presence, later with more mature Insight refused to
follow him either to Rome or to the denial of well-
established belief. Able men of letters deem his
"Apologia" and "Grammar of Assent" to lack In
sound reasoning. He was thoroughly pious, the early
shining of light into his life under evangelical teach
ings never left him, since in all his later years he
claimed the presence and comfort of that light as
heartily as any spiritual nonconformist. No one
should think of Newman other than a towering genius,
possibly the mightiest English mind of the nine
teenth century. His greatness made the grief of
his countrymen all the intenser when in 1845, having
two or three years before withdrawn from the
Anglican Church, he was received into the Catholic
Church, feeling, he said, like one coming into port
after a rough sea.
The fear felt by some that a large following to
Rome would take place, was groundless. One much
alarmed at the movement declared to a certain states
man that two noblemen and their wives had gone over
to Rome. The statesman calmly replied, "Show me
a couple of grocers and their wives who have gone
over; then you will frighten me." In twenty years
some two hundred clergy went to Rome. Newman
retired to Birmingham and established a monastic

392 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
house, where he lived almost a recluse for forty years
after his change, being made a cardinal during this
time. The second important result growing out of the
Oxford movement, the High Church trend, was in=
herent in it from the start. The real movement went
on, being but slightly affected by Newman's leaving
it. Wherever the reform was accepted, much more
attention was paid to forms and ceremonies, to the
liturgy, to saints' days and church festivals, to
beauty of ornamentation in the churches. More
frequent communion was practiced, churches by the
hundred were kept open every day. Scotland and
Ireland were both reached by the change. Schools,
that crying need always in English life, were set up,
their work designed to teach the ways of the new
spirit as well as the demands of modern thought.
Charitable houses were opened, the flrst in London
in 1847. It was noticed that many families were
touched in their homes, having joy and comfort, the
children better brought up, more obedient, loving and
well spoken.
The organization of Sisterhoods, aUied to CathoHc
nunneries also took place, becoming widespread in
the decades. Three or four devout women started
the first one in 1845 in a private house. A historian
says of one of these houses, "It is one of the glories
of our land."
That wing of the Establishment designated the
"Broad Church" was thrown into bitter opposition
owing to the new views and spirit, to some most
startling. Pusey became the active leader of the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 393
section whose drift set strongly toward ritualism of
the most pronounced type. Though not reaching
to Rome, many feared that the Oxford movement was
making true Newman's saying that the Anglican
Church was the halfway house to Rome. This wing
of the Anglican Church refused to be called Protes
tants, claiming to be a branch of the CathoHc Church.
As Catholicism is a polity as well as a sect of
Christianity, multitudes of Englishmen are very shy
of it. So the current, not setting direct to Rome,
was feared as gradually leading that way. Says J.
A. Froude, whose brother, Burrell Froude, followed
Newman to Rome:
"The Church of England may play at sacerdotalism
and masquerade in medieval garniture, the clergy may
flatter one another with notions that they can bind and
loose the souls of their fellow Christians and transform
the substance of the sacramental elements by spells and
gestures, but they will not at this time of day persuade
intelligent men that the bishops in their ordination gave
them supernatural powers."
He says further that the nation has ceased to
care what the clergy may say or do. At least it is
apparent that the ritualistic activity has been force
ful in renewing the ways of Anglicanism. Before the
end of the nineteenth century it was claimed that
half of the clergy were of High Church practices.
The prelates, the courts and parliament are found
to be helpless in stemming the tide of ritualism.
As is ever the case in Christian fields, some of the
clergy have been models of devotion and of success-

394 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ful work. Some sought the most abandoned section
of British cities, gradually worked changes so that
the haunts once of thieves and harlots became the
abodes of honesty and purity. Instances of devoted
missionary work to most difficult members of the
human family were not wanting.
Early in the century the Baptist Union was
formed, which proved of great worth in binding the
denomination, a work much needed. The Union
aided weak churches, raised an educational fund,
helped to build schools of various grades, stirred
Parliament to give Dissenters better laws, entered
the courts for their rights, appealed to public opin
ion, and in other ways pushed forward their work.
In 1876 the Scot and English Presbyterian
churches united on the basis that the Scriptures were
the sufficient source of truth, also uniting on the
Westminster Confessions, including the Larger and
Shorter Catechisms. Following this union the sect
took on fresh vigor in England, putting up new
churches, founding schools and colleges, aiding the
indigent and doing splendid missionary work. Many
able ministers were in the pulpits. To unify de
nominational work it began in 1877 to hold General
Councils, these meeting in different parts of the
kingdom and in United States.
The Independents, seeing the worth of combina
tion for aggressive work, formed the Congregational
Union. They still retained, however, the first prin
ciple of Independency, that every individual is inde
pendent of human authority in all matters pertain
ing to religious faith and practice, the same as every

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 395
local church or congregation is independent. These
high claims have had their influence not only in this
church, but among other sects In creating a sense
of freedom and rights. To further their noble work,
benevolent societies have been formed and missionary
plans at home and abroad have been pushed. In
the agitation arising over education bills of the early
twentieth century they have taken most earnest posi
tion for rights.
Like the other denominations, the Unitarians
found that the changes of thought touched them,
modifying their beliefs and affecting their growth
and activities. Indeed, so marked was the change
that many of them declared that they could hear
as good Unitarian sermons in the Congregationalist
or Anglican churches as in their own. Their drift
was from the extreme views of the older Unitarians, —
Lindsay, Belsham and Priestly, — among the more
liberal ones a modified theism taking the place of the
materialism dominating the sect before. The In
fluence of James Martlneau was to lead the Unita
rians along this trend. As usual they held an ad
vanced place In social life, in noble philanthropies
and in fostering education. A Home Missionary
College was established at Manchester, the New Col
lege was removed from London to Oxford, they set
up libraries, museums and picture galleries that were
of inestimable worth to the public. In Rowland Hill,
the reformer of the postal rates, this sect had a
most exalted benefactor of the people. As the cen
tury was closing they found it difficult to produce
enough ministers for their three hundred fifty
churches.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
In the first third of the century, a remarkable man,
Edward Irving, finding that the Scot people were un-
wUlIng to hear and use him, went to great London to
teach his peculiar faith. There gathered about him
for a time much of rank and fashion. He claimed
that the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit as on
the day of Pentecost and other powers would be con
ferred by laying on of hands if the conditions of
faith and prayer were fulfilled. A fourfold ministry
was instituted, that of apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors. He hoped to restore the office of the twelve
apostles and through that to heal the Ills of Chris
tianity. A speedy coming of Christ to establish His
earthly kingdom he also taught. For awhile Irv
ing's influence was dominant in London and so wide
spread that his services were followed on the con
tinent. But after a few years that influence waned,
his followers coldly neglected him, his Incipient sect
was scattered, and he, old before his time, buffeted,
forlorn, died at middle age to have his work mostly
perish with him.
The Catholic Emancipation of 1829 was foUowed
by rapid development of that denomination in all
parts of the empire. Of course Ireland was the
principal place of their church work. The bill in
troduced in 1846 by Peele to grant money to May-
nooth College, Ireland, frightened England, since
Catholic clergy would be educated and supported by
396

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 397
taxes laid on Protestants. The bill passing, it was
thought by Gladstone that the opposition, though a
parliamentary minority, represented the true opin
ion of England and Scotland. The plan of the pope
to organize an elaborate hierarchy for Great Britain
caUed out an act known as the Ecclesiastical Titles
bill which forbade such an organization, but it was
inoperative, the Catholics proceeding to partition off
the country into dioceses, appoint prelates, and set
up monasteries and nunneries.
In spite of sharp opposition, the alienation of
many of his strong supporters, Palmerston with the
concurrence of the Queen shaped a bill that passed,
placing the Anglican Church in Ireland on a level
with the Catholic Church and others. Thus was
presented the anomaly of one section of the empire
with all the churches free and in the other parts
an establishment still in force that made all but its
own members Dissenters in sight of the law. A vast
amount of funds accumulated in Ireland was divided
among the Irish sects. With an even chance for the
first time in centuries the Irish Catholics rapidly
arose in all elements of a better Christian life and
civilization. The priests often from the peasant
class are profoundly revered by the people. So
great a genius for religion has the Celt that he more
readily submits to ecclesiastical dominance than some
less fiery races. His religion shapes his whole life.
When in 1892 Cardinal Vaughan came to the
see of Westminster he formed the children already
under Catholic direction into crusaders, making the
children the saviors of the chUdren, keeping this

398 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
crusade active by his personal influence, by teach
ing the children the joy of such a work and by let
ters written to them. This method of uplifting the
children has been followed in many other parts of
the world. Like all sects the Catholics have been
touched by the scientific advance of the century.
Possibly the thing that most deeply affected the
religious life In the latter half of the century was
the Salvation Army. To the genius and devotion
of one man, under the direction of Heaven as in
the Methodist revival, can this movement be ascribed.
Indeed it is a product of Methodism. William
Booth, in early life a Methodist, became intensely
eager for the good of his fellowmen and began preach
ing out of doors, which was against a rule of the
Wesleyans. He was accordingly crowded out. He
then united with the Methodist New Connection, but
after a whUe this relation hampered him so that he
was compelled to work by himself. The degraded
masses of East London called so loudly to this man
that he plunged into the seething mass to do them
good. He stated that he had four simple principles
of work, going to the people with the message of
salvation, attracting the people, saving the people,
and giving employment to the people. By 1861 he
had fully entered upon the plans since so greatly
enlarged. The press was put into active use, and
The 'War Cry, was projected. A Httle later in a
huge tent in East London he formally opened the
beneficent activities of his call. His wife was a most
valuable assistant. Within ten years he had more
than thirty stations, helpers by the hundreds, with

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 399
thousands of converts and a multiplying attendance
waiting upon the services. Known during those for
mative years as the Christian Mission the name was
changed in 1877 to Salvation Army and a definite
mUitary organization formed, made necessary be
cause those converted at his services found they were
not welcome in the churches to which before he had
sent them. A uniform was adopted, modest and
practical, the Intense workers going everywhere in
that part of the city. Into the public houses, gin
palaces, prisons, brothels, private houses, to speak
to all and to pray with them. Religious services
were held wherever they could gather the people to
listen in dance halls, theaters and In other places of
resort, as well as on the streets. Any place was
counted holy where God's children whether saint or
sinner would come for Christian instruction. Popu
lar tunes had words of spiritual import set to them
and were sung everywhere. As soon as a person
joined them he was set at work. Woman's faith and
devotion were freely utilized. It seemed another of
those providential movements for the uplift of hu
manity that so many times have had their origin in
the Anglo-Saxon race.
The work of the Salvation Army passed in time to
other cities of Great Britain and then beyond to the
colonies, to United States, to the continents. A
late statement says that the Army is established in
more than fifty countries. Booth reached another
stage of insight, that less could be done for spiritual
uplift than should be done as long as the struggle
just to live was so sharp. Out of this view grew his

400 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
colonizing projects. He planned to set up colonies
in special city industries and on farms in England,
and also to found colonies in other domains where
land was cheap and industries varied. If not always
a success, yet so much success attended these colonies
that vast good was done. So beneficial did these
plans appear that the government sent out H. Rider
Haggard, the author, to Canada and United States
to investigate and report on those colonies with a
view to following some such plan itself if a favorable
outlook was found.
In Queen Victoria it was the fortune of Great
Britain to have a sovereign whose sympathies and
infiuence were in accord with the spirit of the cen
tury. All forward movements for the good of her
people received her kindly help. Her own life was
a noble example of the wife and mother, her court
pure, her diplomacy for peace and its triumphs. She
was in close touch with her people, always insisting
on constitutional procedure through the political
changes of her long reign. At the time of her death
the multitudes of London stood mute as the proces
sion passed, taking her body to its last resting-
place, sturdy sailors instead of horses drawing the
artillery caisson instead of a hearse.

CHAPTER XXXIX
As the eighteenth century was drawing to a close
many things in English life, in politics especially,
demanded reformation. The open and glaring cor
ruption by which legislators were sent to Parliament,
the unequal representation of election districts, the
rejection still of manhood's rights, combined to make
Englishmen restless.
As an aid to progress the Catholic Emancipation
of 1829 gave a valuable shock to the crystallizing
tendencies for reform. O'Connell, who represented
progressive Ireland, stood for universal franchise and
vote by ballot. The Iron Duke, standing in the
way of reform, lost in the contest of advancing Eng
land as he had won at Waterloo. Earl Grey taking
Wellington's place brought forward a bUl of reform
in 1831, against which the king and great numbers
in both houses entered the lists accomplishing its de
feat. But it was the English people, taught by the
growing sense of human rights, enlightened by the
press, by public discussion of the issues, and by the
advance of religious liberty, that corruption had
now to meet. In 1832 the famous Reform Bill
passed the House of Lords and received the King's
signature to become a law. In that bill another
Magna Carta was given England. The Reform Bill
of 1832 was marked rather by the abuses that it
purposed to lessen than for advance in legislation.
Yet it opened the way to other progress and Eng-
401

402 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
land's industrial spirit and religious life were touched
with a sense of rich regeneration.
Alongside those great men who wrought right
eousness through the political Hfe of Great Britain
were other great men who In the fields of church life
also did uplifting things. Among these prominently
stood James Martlneau. Usually classed as a Uni
tarian, he was unwilling to be so named, since he re
fused to belong to any sect that bore a distinct
name or had a distinct form of creed. He was of
French Huguenot blood, thoroughly educated in
Presbyterian colleges, preaching while yet a student,
entering the pastorate first in Dublin then In Liver
pool, professor in two or three colleges, and prin
cipal of the Manchester college after its transfer to
London, and there pastor at the same time in a
Unitarian chapel. He was an independent thinker
in various lines, became prominent in liberal advance,
taught that reason should control opinions of revela
tion, selecting as reliable certain parts of the gospels
while rejecting others.
Clear sighted, he declared in his later years that
the future of English religion was not in negation
and criticism but in the power of faith. In personal
experience he deemed the ideal relation between the
human spirit and the divine to be realized. So deep
was his sympathy with religious freedom that he
heartily approved Gladstone's position In the debate
on the Dissenters' Chapel Bill, of openness to pro
gressive change. One of his maxims was, "All knowl
edge good, all conscience free." Missions and works
of philanthropy heartUy enlisted his aid. His love

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 403
of sacred music led him to compile two or three hymn-
books, finding in Wesley's hymns what stirred the
profoundest recesses of his being. Profound also
was his respect for Channing, the "New England
prophet," learning from him that moral perfection
is the essence of God and the supremest end of man.
Another man exerting a magnificent force in the
religious life was Charles H. Spurgeon. He, too,
had lively religious impressions, and was converted
at the age of sixteen when listening to a sermon In
a Methodist chapel. At seventeen he began preach
ing to a Baptist congregation at Waterbeach,
Combs, receiving twenty pounds a year salary.
Three years later he was called to London to the
pastorate of Parkstreet Chapel. Here great num
bers were attracted by the spirited preaching of
the young man. Then in Exeter Hall vast audiences
listened to him. Later the Metropolitan Tabernacle
was projected, capable of seating seven thousand
people. In all of the building not a workman was
hurt. He considered It an answer to prayer to this
end. His sermons, simple, evangelical, printed in
vast numbers, scattered as widely as the English
language is spoken and put Into many other tongues,
exerted a rich Influence.
Out of his boundless energy he projected many
plans beyond the central church. Scattered through
London and outside were missions, smaller churches,
Sunday Schools and ragged schools, Bands of Hope,
almshouses and other beneficent organizations, all
directed by the master mind at the Tabernacle. A
favorite work of his was the college which in a third

404 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
of a century sent out nearly a thousand men, more
than half of them entering one form or another of
evangelical labors. Mrs. Spurgeon, the helpmeet
worthy of such a husband, aided and directed the
charities. As an instance in fifteen years she dis
tributed to poor preachers needing them about
twenty-five thousand books.

CHAPTER XL
In 1870 a proposal to make a revision of the King
James translation of the Bible was submitted to the
Canterbury Convocation of the Anglican Church by
the Bishop of Winchester, Samuel Wilberforce. The
proposal, meeting with encouragement there and in
many other quarters, was soon entered upon, the New
Testament only being in the plan at first, but this was
afterwards enlarged to include the Old Testament.
Men of learning among English-speaking people
from all sects of Protestantism were invited to join
the undertaking. Of the sixty-five British scholars
on the revision forty were of the Anglican Church.
Of the American section Dr. PhUip Schaff was chair
man. In all, ninety men worked on the revision.
Any change from the wording of the King James
rendering had to be accepted by a vote of two to
one. Some of the changes proposed by the Amer
ican revisers on being sent to England were rejected.
So careful was the work that it was ten years be
fore the New Testament revision was completed and
five years more before the Old Testament was done.
The University press in Oxford and Cambridge,
the copyright being granted them, undertook to
bear the great toil of printing and putting out the
revision. It caused the widest reading of the sacred
book over all the world. Newspapers in the United
States printed in a single issue the whole of the
New Testament. Through opinions of the public
405

406 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ran a strong note of dissatisfaction that the revision
changed renderings so slightly. Its use has steadUy
increased, though by no means superseding the King
James edition.
England's educational system has never been satis
factory. The Establishment, in its efforts for better
facilities, has been opposed by Dissenters and Catho
lics, while these have considered themselves wronged
by the laws already in operation and by the new
ones proposed. Great Britain, denied free public
schools wholly secular by which some other nations
have greatly benefited, has struggled with the edu
cation of its youth, but still at the opening of the
twentieth century lacks a good system for that pur
pose. At the opening of the nineteenth century
nine out of fourteen children in England and Wales
were without public schooling. In Scotland the con
dition was not so bad, but in Ireland it was even
worse. Lancaster's plan of using advanced pupils
as tutors and monitors supplied to a degree a want
for cheap schools, this method being followed on
the continent and as far away as India. It led to
the formation of the British and Foreign School
Society, a formation in which the Quakers were
most prominent, — so promising that rank and
royalty were interested. Opposition to Lancaster's
system arose mostly from its not conforming to the
ways of the Establishment. By the first third of
the century state aid was granted the schools in a
limited way, increasing as the worth of this plan
was apparent. Within sixty years the grants in
creased from twenty thousand pounds a year to

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 407
eight millions and' a half. This aid was granted to
the Catholics in Ireland, permitting separate teach
ing of their own creed.
As time passed the education of the youth, though
having some improvements, was lacking in efficiency.
Bills seeking to improve the situation were offered
by one ministry and another but the question of the
kind of religious instruction to be given was al
ways a block to the wheels. The Catholics, regard
ing the schools in Ireland as godless would not send
their children to them. In the plans, however, care
was taken to protect the conscientious preferences
of the pupils and their parents.
By 1869 it was found that two million and a third
pupils were using the available accommodations of
various kinds and that two million more children were
in no schools at all. The next year Gladstone's
government projected a bill which proposed to re
tain the system of religious instruction, but allow the
people of each denomination to give such religious
instruction as they deemed best. Still, so unsatis
factory were the provisions of this bill to the non
conformists, that it caused the downfall of Glad
stone's premiership. This was said to be not a ques
tion religious, but ecclesiastical, which was often the
very contrary of religious.
Balfour's government in 1902 brought forward a
bill to increase the efficiency of the schools. It was
so one-sided in favor of the Establishment that the
nonconformists made most strenuous opposition to
its passage, but in vain. After its passage some Dis
senters allowed themselves to be thrown into prison

408 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
rather than pay the hateful taxes to support the
schools. It was a supreme case of passive resistance.
By provisions of the bill instruction In the doctrines
and rites of the Anglican Church was obviously de
clared. On the fall of Balfour's government and the
dissolution of Parliament, the Liberal party, pledged
to modify the educational matter, came into power.
But the plans entered upon by the Campbell-Banner-
man's administration and sent up to the Lords, were
not well received by that body, and again the children
of Great Britain wait for education on the ecclesias
tical notions of slow conservatism.
The nineteenth century brought forward a most
wonderful advance in many fields of scientific knowl
edge. The preceding century had handed up to the
new one the elements of geology so it was gradually
learned that the earth was very old and that the
strata had fossils imbedded In them showing Hfe of
remarkable forms and of vast duration. Theologians
saw in the writings of Lyell, Buckland, and others
things contrary to the accepted tenets of their theo
logical books. The early question arose as to whether
the term "day" in the first of Genesis meant a day of
twenty-four hours or a term of extended duration.
The discussions of the leaders were hot and loud, and
each side, confident of holding the truth, led farther
and farther in the field of investigation.
Near the first third of the century two men arrived
at simUar conclusions about the processes of ci'ea-
tion, — Charles Darwin and Alfred R. WaUace. It
was a bit remarkable that to each had come the in
sight when making study of the forms of life from

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 409
sea and island. To the new view of creation was
given the name of evolution.
It was a most radical theory and aroused the mod
ern intellect as possibly it had not been stirred be
fore. The books of Darwin, of Wallace, and of other
able writers soon placed the new teaching before the
public in most interesting and voluminous ways, and
as in the case of geology, and indeed in every great
issue, the Anglo-Saxon interest demanded how this
new teaching was related to religion. Theologians
rushed into the arena, making a fight for their tra
ditional views of man's origin and place in nature.
They feared if this theory prevailed, men would cast
religion away.
Besides these two originators of the evolution the
ory, a group of remarkable men arose, specialists in
philosophy and science, whose writings and lectures
enlarged and illustrated the views of the leaders. Of
these there were three who surpassed all others In
their power and influence, — ^Professor John Tyndall,
Herbert Spencer, and Professor Thomas Huxley.
Added to their great abUity was a tinge of discredit
given by them to the dogmas of the church. In the
main the controversies were conducted in a spirit of
fairness, mostly without vituperation and personal
abuse. In the meantime the work of the Christian people
went on with increasing earnestness. The people, if
chilled a bit in their trust as expressed by church re
lations and by creeds and dogmas, could not be led to
throw away their hopes for the vague, highly subli
mated claims of the scientists. Their vision, growing

410 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
broader, caused unrest, but that unrest had progress
in it. Any drift away from church attendance and
work did hardly more than to remove some people but
loosely connected with the religious life, leaving those
of strong faith better Informed, more courageous and
enthusiastic. It was claimed that these new con
ditions brought forth a higher grade of gospel teach
ing than in any of the centuries preceding. The Ox
ford movement led the Anglican people to a stronger
trust in their liturgy, while the Dissenters with new
views obtained new life of the spirit.
But in reality some of those leaders, — Spencer,
Mill, Huxley, and others, — in the questioning devel
opment of thought had deep religious sentiments.
Mr. Darwin was singularly non-committal about re
ligion. His writings show little evidence of scep
ticism. The present renascence is comparable to that of
the sixteenth century, yet in different fields and of
broader significance to mankind. Not the literature
and phUosophy of a past civilization, but the elements
and forces of a mighty present are the matters
brought forward. Many things of supreme impor
tance to further progress are made definite and em
phatic. Millions of facts of nature and of man be
fore unknown are to this age made known. Laws ac
cording to which the universe is governed are under
stood, giving to the hand of man means of multiply
ing his forces, and of enlarging his vision.
By the vast uplift of mind and of knowledge new
adjustments are made necessary. Among them are
the views of man as a religious being. The new

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 411
views of law as the action of a law-giver, not of forces
capable in themselves of supreme action, enable men
to hold a rational trust in God before lacking. If
God is to be traced in all nature, wielding forces not
before dreamed of, he is brought nearer to man, who
now as never before can see the beneficence of the
Heavenly Father. Schleirmacher said there was an
immediate feeling of dependence of man upon God.
This is found to have a deeper significance to man
than questions of society, of science or of government.
If the Evangelical revival had a noble vocation to
the rapidly extending British Empire, the vast en
largement of knowledge in the next century had its
vocation also to the Anglo-Sasfon world. Man with
wider outlook and better personality would seek to
extend his blessings to others of his own nation and
to dependent peoples. Thus have come the franchise
to the lower classes of Great Britain, still stronger
insistence of rights by nonconformists, greater lib
erty to colonies, and intenser purpose to give non-
Christian peoples the spiritual and material benefits
of the gospel. The brotherhood of man, the say of
science that he Is of one species, have placed scientists
and theologians on common ground.

CHAPTER XLI
By the middle of the nineteenth century the mis
sionary spirit had brought forth the first of a series
of great missionary conferences and conventions that
have lasted ever since. The earHest of these meet
ings was caUed at New York in 1854. Dr. Alexander
Duff, the widely known Scot missionary to India, was
then in United States, the guest of George H. Stuart
of Philadelphia, who led in calling the New York
Convention to listen to the Scotsman. Above a hun
dred fifty delegates gathered from most of the de
nominations of the country, all becoming greatly
stirred by the eloquence of Dr. Duff and by the de
mands of the cause. The same year a similar con
vention was called in London, which, if not as widely
attended as the one in New York, yet pushed the
cause forward.
Following these Initiatory meetings, a great one
was held at Liverpool in 1860. This one was inter
national, being made up of representatives from a
large number of denominations, of active mission
aries, of leading men from many missionary boards,
as well as men from high civil and military rank.
Nothing marred the fraternal spirit of the conven
tion. Anglican met Independent, Methodist met
Independent, Methodist met Presbyterian, English
man met American, all on common grounds. This
convention was able to present much wisdom before
the world won by experience. All agreed that the
412

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 413
Bible put into native tongues was invaluable. So
with indescribable toil and patience it was being ac
complished. Within the sixty years of the century
the Bible or portions of it had been put into a hun
dred languages. Bible Societies had risen alongside
the missionary societies. These societies were pre
pared to print that book and to aid the missionaries
in giving it out to the peoples.
Everywhere schools had been started where it could
be done. Some of these had grown up from crude
beginnings to colleges of high grade. It was noted
that great periodicals had changed their tone from
neglect to hearty sympathy and frequent notice.
The missionary societies and the missionaries in
foreign fields were alert In using the press.
Also by this time three definite currents of work
had been found valuable and necessary, the evangel
ical, the educational, the medical. From the first
preaching by interpreters, and in the native lan
guages as soon as these could be used, was followed by
good results. The schools including mechanical and
manual training among the backward peoples, had
also been attended with success. In this department
the missionary women had taken hold with special
zeal. Medical missionary work, though operating In a
few places, was found proving its worth. The first
done was in 1835 at Canton by Dr. Peter Parker, who
treated natives suffering with bad eyes. Later he
also worked in Hong Kong. Other medical establish
ments were then set up, giving Bible instruction along
with the healing of bodies. It was seen by the time of

414 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
this Convention that the conversion of peoples in the
long run to the new religion must mostly be done by
the natives developed into successful workers through
the various agencies used by the missionaries. Self-
support by native churches In part or wholly was
found to be most important, the careful missionaries
guiding and encouraging to that end. At times of
famine or war the missionaries, sensitive to suffering
humanity, had gathered orphans and others, feeding,
clothing, caring for them.
The uplift of missionary zeal aroused by the Con
vention brought a spirit of revival throughout Eng
land. The blending of denominations was most
hearty, the brotherhood of toilers making all hopeful
and happy. Out of the Convention also came the
remarkable movement reaching to the present, a sug
gestion of Mr. Bickersteith that a week of prayer for
missions be held the first of January each year. The
scope has been broadened to include many subjects
and is now universally observed over all Christendom.
Eighteen years passed before another great inter
national gathering was called. In 1878 the Mild-
may Conference met In London to compare methods,
report work, cheer each other, and unitedly to seek
Heaven's blessing upon mission work.
Nearly all the Protestant mission work was being
done, it was found, by the Anglo-Saxon race and by
such continental peoples as were of closely allied
blood. At this conference a French missionary said:
"I came here also to ask guidance, for we look to you
Anglo-Saxons, to those who are representatives of
Christian civilization, for advice."

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 415
It was reported at the MUdmay Conference that
the Bible Societies and the Tract Societies were show
ing marked success along with the missionaries.
Wise missionaries were adapting themselves to dif
ferent countries, various peoples, and to peculiar
faiths. The missionaries working among the Moham
medans found deep-seated prejudices and a deep-
seated claim for the superiority of Islam, so the work
was not as successful as among other peoples. Yet
with Anglo-Saxon determination they were holding
on in Egypt, in Syria and elsewhere.
One of the most stirring things discussed at this
Conference was slavery in Africa. The Arab slave-
trader was still cursing Africa. His religion per
mitted this traffic. The trade on the east coast had
been mostly stopped, the vigilance of British gunboats
being most effective, but to the northward there was
still an open passage. On January 1st, 1877,
slavery in Portuguese Africa had been formally abol
ished. But Central Africa was the plague spot.
Three great missionary societies beside those al
ready active in the south and along the coast had now
in Africa well-established stations far in the interior.
The Scot Presbyterian churches united to found one
on Lake Nyassa, and they had been most successful.
The same was true of the Church Missionary Society
Station established on Lake Nyanza. The London
Missionary Society did a like noble work by penetrat
ing to Lake Tanganyika, the missionaries in these
three cases being In the pioneer footsteps of the ex
plorers to the central regions of the great continent.
These three interior missions were considered strate-

416 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
glc locations, where successful work was being done to
stop tribal wars and cannibal feasts, to put a check
on marauding expeditions for catching slaves.
The help of woman in mission fields, neglected in
the early development of the work, was after three-
fourths of a century fully recognized. In 1828 Miss
Bird was admitted to several zenanas, really begin
ning all that beneficence since carried on with such
marked worth.
Reports given in from many great mission fields
were of the most encouraging tone. In India edu
cated natives were seeing more and more the beauty
of Christianity, even though not accepting it. Mod
ern civilization was actively at work changing India
for the better.
No farther back than 1836 it was impossible for
Morrison even to enter China as a .missionary. In
order to start a college for educating the Chinese he
had to set it up In far-away Malacca among Chinese
emigrants. Morrison waited persistently at the
closed gates of China to be rewarded finally. By the
time of this Conference work there was well under
way. The remarkable change in Japan had set into defi
nite shape by the time of the MUdmay Conference.
In 1872 the missionaries and English residents in Yo
kohama united in a week of prayer. Some Japanese
students attended these meetings. A mighty uplift
occurred. That year the first native church was or
ganized and though of but eleven members it was the
beginning of all the native growth afterward. A the
ological school was opened.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 417
One field showing supremest success was on the
island of Oceanica. Nearly all those scattered
groups had been won to Christ. Leading in this
grand work were the London Society, the Wesleyan
Society, and the American Board. So marked were
the Hawalians by the true spirit of Christianity that
they were themselves sending missionaries to other
islands. In Australia the aborigines were yielding
but poor results. Their inveterate migratory habits
had left one important station established by the
Wesleyans without a single native to attend, while
other societies had suffered similar misfortunes. New
Guinea had been successfully entered by the London
Society besides two Australian Societies. Off the
northeast coast of that great mass of land the Wes
leyans had started a mission on some small islands.
Chinamen coming to those localities as laborers were
met by missionaries and work among them was begun.

CHAPTER XLII
Ten years passed and another great missionary
meeting assembled, known as the Exeter Hall Cen
tenary Conference. This Conference of 1888 was on
a vaster scale than any of the preceding ones. In it
gathered fifteen hundred delegates representing one
hundred forty-one missionary societies, sixty-eight of
these from United States and Canada, fifty-four
from Great Britain with thirteen hundred delegates,
while the continent sent men from seventeen societies
and the colonies were represented by two societies.
An intense enthusiasm marked the proceedings. The
foreign missionary spirit greatly aided home mis
sions and held the home church to the simple evan
gelical truths of the gospel. It was declared at the
Conference that Whitefield and Wesley in their mis
sion to Georgia and In field preaching taught the
Anglo-Saxon race the true missionary spirit, as the
work of Robert Haldane taught the spirit of home
missions. The Conference deemed that the oracles
of God were in these times committed to the English
people, making them the ambassadors of Christ to
other races.
But blocking this message stood three great ob
stacles, for the removal of which the Exeter Hall
Conference besought civUIzed man — the opium traffic,
that of liquors, and legal protection of the social vice.
To the African people another evil was carried, fire
arms, for such as could procure them were enabled to
418

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 419
be more destructive in their slave hunting and in their
tribal wars.
The Bible was now presented to the world's people
in about three hundred languages. The Bible So
ciety and the Tract Societies were crowded to the
intensest activity, the former issuing four million
Bibles in a single year. Of tracts twenty-six millions
also were thrown out one year.
Grandly shown at this Conference as never before
was the wisdom of setting women at work. In 1887
Bishop Thoburn returned to India from America with
a body of recruits for his mission. Of these fifteen
were women, two were men. Native women, like na
tive men, were themselves heartily at work In mission
ary duties. Of one hundred eighty-six native helpers
among the Tamils and Telugus, forty-three were
women. The native women in China and the western
women teachers in Japan were everywhere welcome.
The example and memory of Mrs. Moffatt in South
Africa, of Mrs. Hills at Athens, and of other de
voted women In other localities were an Inspiration at
home and abroad. Woman's Boards by the score
had been organized with thousands of auxiliaries in
England and in America. On a ship going to
England just before the Exeter Hall Conference an
American delegate made the acquaintance of a man
who said, "You know, I had no interest In foreign
missions ; I cared nothing for missions, but my wife
became heart and soul interested in them and the con
sequence is that she fired me with enthusiasm, and I
am going to London to attend the Conference."
The glance given Catholic missions in India showed

420 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
above two milhons and a half adherents, nearly three
thousand European missionaries, a hundred thousand
pupils In the schools. The Catholics were also suc
cessful in China, among the Indians of America, in
the far-away islands of Oceanica and elsewhere.
At that Conference glimpses were given of the
fruits of missionary zeal from other parts of the world.
Africa poured out not in vain a pathetic appeal to
missionaries. In the Transvaal mission, the Wesley
ans, having begun with no place of worship, now had
four hundred stations and preaching places, with
thirty thousand members. So remarkable was the
success on the Fiji Islands that while fifty years be
fore there had been not a Christian, now there was
not a heathen. So thorough was the change that
only nine foreign missionaries were on the island, the
churches being supplied with more than three thou
sand native preachers, and the forty thousand native
children being taught by native teachers.
Again those Interested in missions gathered in an
Ecumenical Conference, this time in 1900 in New
York. Hundreds of delegates poured in from all
parts of the world, seven hundred of them being mis
sionaries. Every day and evening the people
crowded Carnegie Hall to the utmost, compelling
overflow meetings at adj acent churches till it was said
that two hundred thousand attended the various as
semblies. It was said that the nineteenth century was one of
experiment in missions rather than one of achieve
ment. The look forward was to much vaster results
in the twentieth century. Still the successes won.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 421
the names honored, the heroic self-sacrifice, were re
garded as most inspiring. Missions were deemed as
one field of Christian work that God had supremely
blessed. It was worth a century of beginnings to
report, as was done, that there were five thousand mis
sion stations, fifteen thousand out stations, thirteen
thousand western men and women In foreign fields,
with sixty-two thousand native helpers and a million
and a half of living converts and other millions gone
to their eternal home. On the medical dispensaries
seventeen million patients waited each year. Chal
mers had said that foreign missions act on home mis
sions not by exhaustion but by fermentation. Dr.
Duff declared that the church which is not evangelis
tic wIU soon cease to be evangelical.
The worth of the printed page was shown again
and again. A Hindu merchant on his travels was
given a Testament. Later he came to baptism with
all his family. A robber band In the mountains read
a Christian tract in their fastness and were changed
to honest men, twelve of them applying for baptism.
While the Conference was sitting the famine was
severe In India, and the assembly proceeded to or
ganize a famine relief. In that famine of 1900 the
American Board took up two thousand orphans, the
Methodist Episcopal Missions accepted as many
more, while other missions also did nobly for the suf
fering. Pundita Ramabai was busy at her noble vo
cation, having taken three hundred widows to her
Poona home in the famine of 1897. She set those
waifs at varied industries, housekeeping and other
indoor work, fruit raising, farming and the like out

422 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
doors. Sir Henry Ramsey had founded a home for
lepers at Almora, in this noble beneficence leading all
others. Miss Mary Reed, caring for these unfortu
nate ones, was smitten with the disease, henceforth
devoting her life to them.
The education of the youth of India was placing
them at one with the student body of the world. The
philosophy taught was in some ways leading to the
personality of God, yet the Hindu schools were teach
ing their pupUs to oppose Christianity. The govern
ment schools, in their efforts to be non-partisan, often
had a trend toward agnosticism and materialism.
Missionary schools led most of their pupils to Chris
tianity. Forty thousand students crowded the col
leges of India, nearly twice as many as were in all the
colleges of Great Britain and Ireland. So eager were
the young for education that the attendance was
steadily increasing. In other eastern countries the
education of the natives was grandly increasing and
the press was tireless.
Literature of a high grade was lacking, but efforts
were made to meet the need. As the Philippines felt
the touch of the new order, they were clamoring for
the Bible, it not having been given them in three hun
dred years of Spanish dominancy.

CHAPTER XLIII
A vision of the present shows that righteousness
and charity, love to mankind and longing for peace,
have come to the world as never before. The re
ligious life has been found to be as broad as God's
dealings with humanity. If the principles of this
life seem to have come slower than the tremendous
industrial and commercial spirit, they are still pres
ent and active. While stupendous fortunes have ac
cumulated, vast sections of them have in many in
stances been turned into channels bringing comfort,
education, advance to multitudes of people. The
multiplied means of rapid travel has brought the
people into touch with their fellows vastly more than
before, the four nations by that becoming better ac
quainted and being made more sympathetic.
In London science joined hands with Christianity
to remove the plague spots of vice, ignorance and
crime. Possibly that city showed the extreme degra
dation of the Anglo-Saxon life. Better control of
disease by medical practice and sanitation has much
ameliorated conditions there. The work of various
orders of Sisters, the Salvation Army, and the
churches constantly aided in lifting many out of the
quagmire. Two settlements in London can well be studied.
A young man, Quinton Hogg, having left Eton, un
dertook work among the outcast boys of London.
To learn the best ways of doing this he turned street
423

424 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
arab himself for several months, blacking boots,
sleeping under archways and by other means learning
the ways and spirit of the street boys. Then he op
ened a ragged school, to which he attracted the boys.
The aid of philanthropic people was enlisted and out
of that beginning arose the Regent Polytechnic Insti
tution, in which the sum of a hundred thousand
pounds was finally invested. In addition to private
gifts, money was given to the undertaking by the
London County Council. At the untimely death of
the projector flags of the city were placed at half-
mast. It was also at the East End that another settle
ment was made among a population said to be most
brutal, their habits disgusting, and their ideal idle
ness. "By them the honest man and right-living
woman were scorned as impracticable." The masses
were joyless, the young hopeless. Into such a local
ity in 1872 Mr. Barnett went with his young wife to
a parish where eight thousand people lived on a space
of one hundred nine thousand five hundred square
yards. This young couple opened the deserted
church, started schools and Bible classes, organized a
relief committee and other parish machinery. Many
of the people, instead of trying to meet their own
wants, came to the rector constantly begging. Mr.
Barnett and his wife, visiting Oxford, told of the sit
uation at the East End, arousing spirited young men
to save the people from such conditions. The rector
suggested the purchase of a house as headquarters
for University men to stay a longer or shorter time,
working among the degraded people. This move-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 425
ment grew and a larger house was erected, a promi
nent leader in the work being Arnold Toynbee, whose
death at an early date led them to name that building
Toynbee Hall. Twenty young University men lived
there at one time, toiling to lessen the ignorance and
vice of the suffering masses about them. Toynbee
Hall has a history known as widely as Christianity
goes, and has many imitations in the great cities of
the world.
All efforts to suppress Christianity have been flat
failures. Direct science could not be made into a
cult. It would yield no spiritual aliment. So, too,
the claim put forward for humanism, setting human
ity as a whole in place of Deity, was a failure. A
Metaphysical Society formed in 1869 had discussions
in the freest spirit, to which came men of various
shades of faith, Gladstone, Martlneau, Manning,
Tennyson, Argyl, Huxley, Ruskin. But metaphysics
could not equal the high help given the human spirit
by religion, so this society perished, it was said, out
of charity and love.
Another principle fostered by science as well as by
Christianity was that of rights. Slavery was oblit
erated and religious persecution lessened. More than
ever before was a chance made for all men. Spencer
said, "The end which statesmen should keep in view as
higher than all other ends is the formation of charac
ter." The gift of rights in franchise, in social and
religious life, was slow but certain. It was one of the
most striking fruits of rights in England that John
Burns, though in the ranks of laboring men, should
in the formation of the Liberal Ministry in the flrst

426 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
decade of the twentieth century, be given a place in
the Cabinet.
As, the heat of controversies over, matters of
science and religion cooled, it was found that some
teachings claimed by science were greatly modified,
and on the other hand some positions held by re
ligious teachers were left in the rear. It was urged
that the apparent discrepancies between science and
the Bible were owing to human theories drawn from
both, not to any real difference, since nature was the
work of God and the Bible the word of God.
With the progress so enriching life has come a
multitude of benedictions to woman. By increased
culture and opportunities, lives and homes have been
made more joyous and given broader outlook. Pri
vilege and duty were more clearly defined. Ener
getic women like Miss Bees and Miss SomervIUe
worked for educational chances for girls till high
schools were opened to them, and most naturally col
leges were needed, and that need was met in opening
Newnham and Girton, and later others.
If in high realms of spirit woman was crowding up
ward, she also became efficient In humbler ministries
of life. To the toiling and underpaid of the great
cities devoted women supplied food at the cheapest
rates, and to those penniless even without pay. The
sisterhood of the Anglican Church opened houses
where penny soups and two-penny lunches could be
obtained, these stands throughout the cities being
thronged by hungry men, — toilers or those out of
work, — presenting most pathetic scenes of need and
gratitude. This pioneer work was followed by other

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 427
sects, the Salvation Army making a most notable
record in this field. To aid the poor to aid them
selves charitable organizations opened rooms where
wives and daughters of the needy could do sewing, by
that earning a pittance to relieve their families.
Said George Macdonald :
"The tide of action in these days flows more swiftly
in the hearts of women, whence has resulted so much
that is nobler, so much that is paltry, according to the
nature of the heart in which it swells."

CHAPTER XLIV
In America the religious life first found an open
field. The old world had the hateful words, inqui
sition, nonconformity, toleration, dissenter. If pass
ing whiffs of these hateful things were wafted to the
new world they were gradually stilled so that com
plete religious liberty finally prevailed. Men perse
cuted for their religious opinions in different nations
turned longing eyes toward America, hopeful of find
ing opportunities denied them in Europe. Their
hopes were not in vain. Yet not religion alone led
men to America. Political unrest was almost as
vivid as that of religion. With the printing press,
the discovery of the new continent, the Renascence,
the invention of gunpowder and the compass, and
with the broadening of knowledge, came the Reforma
tion and incipient Democracy.
From the first, two high principles were uppermost
in the thought and purpose of the immigrants, — re
ligious liberty and civil freedom. Yet they brought
with them oversea some of the old-world imperfec
tions. So dissent to Dissenters in Massachusetts was
made a crime, and dissent to Episcopalians in Vir
ginia was also made a crime. But there was in the
new world in its open life, the vast unknown expanse,
in the enlargement of vision, that which would neither
continue to suffer nor to inflict such limitations.
The Puritans who mostly settled other parts of
New England like the little group of Pilgrims at Ply-
428

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 429
mouth were in search of rights, of religious service
and self-government. But their Puritanism was in
sistent that all must attend Puritan churches or be
mulcted. Heretics were run out of the colonies,
Quakers hanged, and other ways of civil and religious
liberty wore violated. That was at first. Gradually
a better spirit grew up, for it was impossible that
tyranny even of the many should flourish in America.
The free spirit gradually stopped the hanging of
witches, just as it opened the gates of jails to those
imprisoned for religious opinions.
The religious life like the ethnological life of
America was made up of many diverse peoples and
creeds. New York was settled by the Dutch. In
Holland it was uncomfortable for those differing
from the Established Church, and these dissenters,
refugees, sought freedom of worship and colonized
Manhattan. The directors designed the young city
as an asylum for refugees from every land. "No per
son," they said, "professing faith In God by Jesus
Christ shall at any time be in any way disquieted or
questioned for any differences of opinion." French
Protestants came to Manhattan in great numbers as
later they went to South Carolina. The Dutch set
tlement there was more forward in religious Hberty
than Massachusetts or Virginia. Sweden, too, sent
its freedom-loving immigrants In search of rights ;
large numbers of them, furnished with religious teach
ers from the start, settled on the peninsula of Dela
ware. To Penn, as he was planning his province, "gov
ernment was a part of religion itself, an emanation

430 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
of divine power, capable of kindness, goodness and
charity." PhUadelphia was prophetic of national
independence. New Jersey, thanks to the Quaker
spirit founding it upon humane principles, was
started with the purpose that freedom of judgment,
conscience and worship should be granted to every
peaceful citizen. To that province also came many
Scot Presbyterians from the prelatlcal persecutions
of their own country, blending in the new world love
of popular liberty with religious enthusiasm.
Lord Baltimore when his little fleet was preparing
to go with colonists to Maryland, put it under the
protection of God, of the Virgin Mary, and of St.
Ignatius. Some Jesuits included in the immigrants
at once on landing set up a cross and offered mass in
an Indian hut. While it was distinctly a Catholic
country it allowed all to cultivate their religious life
as they would. In South Carolina the Anglican
Church was put foremost, yet Dissenters came in
great numbers. The French Huguenots thronged
there till the colony and later the state took much of
its caste from them. Faneuil Hall, the cradle of
liberty of the north, was the gift of a Huguenot's
son. North Carolina when being founded had no
special plans for religious life. People of many
creeds went there and many with little dependence on
the sects or creeds. Freedom of conscience was their
joy. By act of the incipient assembly freedom of
religion was established In spite of attempts to make
the Anglican Church dominant. As late as the mid
dle of the eighteenth century in Georgia General
Oglethorpe sought a spot where one could worship

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 431
in the simplicity of his own way without fear or per
secution. To such a region people outside of Great
Britain came, from Germany Salzburgers, Moravians
and others, pious, peaceful, industrious, finding the
asylum they sought. There also John Wesley and
Charles Wesley obtained, if roughly, help in their re
ligious development.
As time passed and the colonies grew in size they
became more Insistent on their rights, religious, so
cial, commercial, political. A century before the
Revolutionary War incipient steps were taken toward
independence. The union of church and state in New
England worked badly and a similar condition In Vir
ginia was put into bloody execution by Governor
Dale. When Andros was forcing the New England
colonies to give up their cherished charters the min
isters in many instances preached what was consid
ered sedition and were so militant as to plan resist
ance to that minion of bad EngHsh government. The
last call of the United Colonies was a call for the
defense of the Protestant religion. On the accession
of William Third the new charters granted freedom
to every sect save to the Romanists. Gradually
from that time royal authority was used to give wider
privUeges to all in America. A law in South Car
oHna depriving Dissenters of political rights was re
pealed by the King in Council and laws in other col
onies favoring one denomination to the injury of
another, were also annulled by the King.
Though the Anglican Church in Virginia was the
state church it gradually allowed other sects to in
crease. Up to the Revolutionary War that dom-

432 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
inancy continued and as good a governor as Sir WUl
iam Berkley could thank God they had no schools
and printing in that colony, praying to be kept from
both, afraid that learning had brought heresy and
disobedience and the sects, whUe the printing press
had divulged them and put forth libels against the
best of governments. The conduct of church mat
ters was democratic since many took a hand in them
whether in the parishes of the south or in the Congre
gational churches of the north. Town meetings and
parish meetings were the seed plots of Hberty.
The expanding area of settlement, the terrible In
dian wars, the French encroachments, aided the in
creasing colonists in dropping sharp sectarianism
and in working together. If the soldiers clad in
homespun held religious meetings before Louisburg,
it mattered little to them if all present did not agree
in every shade of Puritan belief. When fighting for
the safety of their homes, of their wives and children,
neither did It matter, if the stout pioneer could endure
the hard march and could shoot well, whether he was
a Congregationalist from Boston, or a Baptist from
Rhode Island, or of the Reformed Church of New
York, or a heretic not belonging to any sect.
Near the middle of the eighteenth century a series
of religious revivals took place in America as had
begun in England and on the continent, and for that
matter across Asia, since great moral upheavals
moved the old Imperfect religions as far away as
Pekin and Manchuria. As early as 1734 Jonathan
Edwards, pastor at Northampton, Massachusetts, a

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 433
graduate of Yale, a man of most marked mental and
spiritual forces, had led his congregation to great
intensity of the religious life, large numbers being
converted. Among the first converts were some very
vicious persons who were induced to a better life;
others were aroused, and the work increased until out
of a population of eleven hundred it was estimated
that in six months three hundred were thus changed.
The revival spread beyond ; Deerfield, Enfield, and a
score of other towns were stirred; and Northfield,
to give in the next century D. L. Moody to the Chris
tian church, was reached by the movement. Ac
counts of it were published in England ; John Wesley
wrote in his Journal :
"Surely this is the Lord's doings and it is marvelous
in our eyes."
Nor was it confined to New England. For out to
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania the excite
ment went. Indeed, before the work of Edwards, the
Tennents, a remarkable family, a father and three
sons, coming from Ireland, settled at Neshaming, not
far from Philadelphia. There they built a rude log
house which they opened as a school for young men
for the Presbyterian ministry. That log college
was the- germ of Princeton College. This family be
came burning lights, their students catching the same
spirit so that the revival begun north by Edwards to
be doubly successful had only to fuse with the one
already going on in Pennsylvania. The Tennents
and their pupils not only welcomed the revival but

434 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
also Whitefield In his flaming tours. With Whitefield
the Tennents and Jonathan Edwards wUl be remem
bered as the leaders In this Great Awakening in
America as Wesley and others are remembered in the
English revival. No doubt the mental and spiritual
uplift as well as the increased unity of sentiment
aroused by these revivals in the colonies prepared
them to be enduring through the contests following,
the French and Indian War, and that prolonged
struggle for national formation and national inde
pendence. And there was need of such a moral and religious
revival, for on the other hand evil forces were ter
ribly at work. The low state of education left men
tal vacuity, the lack of organized churches in most of
the communities, and the fewness of ministers, left
great sections without religious influences. Scepti
cism grew, immorality prevailed, men gloried in their
departure from the straight paths of their fathers.
A blight In morals and religion had spread over the
land. The gangrene of slavery was at work and New
England rum fostered an increasing curse of intem
perance. The revival helped to change all this, set
ting men by the ten thousand on the other way.
Still education had not been wholly neglected. In
England gifts to Virginia had been made for this
object. So scattered were the colonists that schools
were poorly sustained. The College of William and
Mary, founded in 1692, was carried on with certain
proofs of success. Harvard for scores of years had
been blessing New England. With the opening of
the new century ten venerable men meeting at Brad-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 435
ford, Connecticut, each laying down a few books said,
"I give these books for the founding of a college in
this colony." Thus Yale began in 1702. Schools
of lower grades, partly on the plan of free schools,
later to be the glory of the nation, were set up,
especially at the north. Private schools were not
uncommon while many ministers taught pupils pri
vately, fitting them for the colleges and for the pro
fessions. Europe was constantly sending over cul
tured men who did not leave the professions wholly
unsupplied.

CHAPTER XLV
During the decades before the Revolutionary War
the great denominations mostly assumed forms lead
ing to the vast growth later to be attained. In the
southern colonies, mostly founded by the upper
classes of England, the Anglican Church was set up
as the state church as at home, one purpose usually
stated in the charters being to establish the "true
Christian faith and religion as now professed in the
Church of England." In New England the domi
nant sect was the Congregatlonalists, their polity and
doctrine largely patterned after the little colony at
Plymouth. Under this influence the churches stood
together for divine service without ritual, for an edu
cated ministry, and for a unit of self-government in
each congregation. But the stout Calvinism was
being met by a stout Armlnianism. Finally the
Arminian doctrines became the practical teaching of
all the American churches.
The class of people founding the Presbyterian
church was such as to foretell the history of that
great denomination in America. Scot Covenanters
fresh from the bloody persecutions that they so
keenly felt were wrongs against soul and body, came
for freedom. Scot Highlanders, many of them like
the WaUoons of the old Turanian hot-blooded stock,
earliest settlers of western Europe, also came as
Covenanters. Scotch-Irish flocked in from the north
of Ireland, refugees from Protestant persecutions.
435

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 437
Among the educated ministers sent from the old
country was John Cuthbertson from the Presbytery
of Scotland. He nobly did the circuit act before
that way became popular with the Methodists. This
man formed an immense circuit through central
Pennsylvania as far west as Pittsburg and went east
ward out of the bounds of his circuit to Rhode Island.
In one year he preached on one hundred twenty days
and rode horseback twenty-five hundred miles, cross
ing unbrldged streams, through unbroken forests, in
danger from Indians and ferocious beasts, storms,
cold and snow. At such work this tireless preacher
persisted for thirty-nine years, traveling seventy
thousand miles, baptizing nearly two thousand chil
dren and marrying two hundred forty couples.
The Baptist Dissenters in England were forced to
be Dissenters on coming to America. Hoping in the
new country to find freedom for their peculiar tenets
they were to be disappointed not only in New Eng
land but in some other colonies. Roger Williams had
been driven out for teaching that not infants should
be baptized but adults and they believers. The first
president of Harvard College, Henry Dunster, was
compelled to resign, owing to his views on baptism.
Finally the Baptists built a church in Boston cost
ing sixty pounds, but on its occupancy a great hub
bub arose, their leading men were brought before the
court and as no laws were found against them the
court proceeded to enact such laws, shutting the
church when the poor Baptists had to worship out of
doors. But after some years of persecution and op
pression they were permitted to build in Puritan Bos-

438 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ton. In New York and Virginia and farther south
they suffered disgraceful treatment. As later in the
eighteenth century they pushed westward into Mis
sissippi, Louisiana and Missouri, their ministers were
arrested and abused. The tireless itinerants sought
out the scattered people, frequented social gather
ings, fairs, markets, musters, going anywhere they
could meet people and preach to them. When put
into prison they preached to the crowds collected at
the windows. Everywhere possible they organized
churches. One Clark, converted in a Methodist
meeting, later joined the Baptists and went on foot
preaching in Kentucky and when presented with a
horse soon gave it away. To Missouri and Illinois he
went, swimming streams, hunting up the scattered
people, if lost in the woods sleeping under a covering
of boughs.
The treatment of the Quakers in Massachusetts is
a story the reading world would be glad had never
occurred. The first Quakers in Boston outraged de
cency as in some instances they had done in England.
But that four persons, one of them a woman, should
be hung for fanatic actions entitling them to a place
in bedlam rather than to the hangman's knot, is a
dreadful stain upon the brilliant page of New Eng
land colonization. But finally the sober sense of the
people at large rescinded the fateful law that mur
dered Quakers as it did the one murdering witches.
The last Quaker punished suffered whipping In 1667.
Freedom came to them in 1691 under the charter of
William Third. In states south of New England
they were also outrageously treated. When settling

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 439
in New Jersey they held religious meetings at Bur
lington in a tent before a building was erected. Says
Bancroft :
"Neither faith nor wealth nor race was respected.
Pennsylvania, Delaware, West New Jersey, and in some
measure Rhode Island and North Carolina were Quaker
states." The Catholics in Maryland, after being dominated
for a while by Puritan bigotry, were able by the help
of the powerful family founding it to regain their
rights. Charles Carroll of CarroUton, a very prom
inent Catholic and signer of the Declaration of In
dependence exerted great influence for them. Liv
ing to the age of ninety-six till 1832, he was the last
of those signing that immortal document. Grad
ually in spite of the penal laws against them the
Catholics started church organizations in most of
the large cities. Their superb church organization
was most valuable but down to the Revolution only
feeble results were reached.
The teachings of Universalism that "the final holi
ness of all men through the grace of God was revealed
in Jesus Christ," like other shades of religious be
liefs and life, found a place in America. From the
start it was a religion of free thinking. A few
preachers here and there in the colonies as well as
obscure sects believed in that doctrine. Some be
lieved in the restoration of all, even the lost souls
in hell. Now and then some pastor was dismissed
for these declarations and the Presbyterian synods
in the central colonies took action against such
teachings among their people.

440 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
The stout Governor Stuyvesant forbade conven
ticles in Manhattan since all not belonging to the
Reformed Church were so considered. But gradually
other denominations found a place in the city and
when it feU Into the hands of the British the gover
nors tried to set up exclusively the Anglican Church
in spite of the liberal laws. The other sects being
largely in the majority were led in resistance to this
course by the Dutch, who bravely stuck for their
rights. At the opening of the eighteenth century
the province had fifty churches, one-half of them
Dutch Reformed. To educate their young men they
founded Rutgers College, locating it at New Bruns
wick, New Jersey, to accommodate New York and
Pennsylvania. In the Revolutionary War the thea
ter of campaigning was mostly where the Dutch
Church had grown up so that their congregations
were scattered and their churches destroyed. In
spite of this these people sent a memorial in 1780
to the New York Legislature declaring the war just
and necessary.
Not till New York was occupied by the EngHsh
could the Lutherans form church organizations.
But they had already started churches in liberal
Pennsylvania, and begged the old country for pas
tors learned and well versed in the Scriptures to
lead their children in conduct and in conversation.
Lutheranism stood for a religious life that was
humble, devout, unobtrusive, joyous and buoyant,
living in mystical union with God. Count Zinzendorf,
the great leader of the Moravians, came into Penn
sylvania organizing his conference and teaching his

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 441
peculiar tenets. This caused the Lutherans to send
to Europe for some one to counteract the Count's
work, resulting In the coming of Muhlenberg, who
became an apostle to the Dutch in that colony and
beyond. Methodism was one of the latest denominations
to become started in America before the Revolution
ary War. Among some Irish Palatines was a local
preacher, Philip Embury, and a remarkable woman,
Barbara Heck. Many of these people before ex
emplary became profane and drunken, falling also
into other vices. She appealed to Embury to preach
to these immigrants and in his own house with an
audience of four people he set up Methodism in
America. That was In 1766. Captain Webb, bar
rack master at Albany, hearing of them, himself
made a local preacher by Wesley, came to New York
and preached for them in full uniform. Webb in
duced Wesley to send preachers for the rising work,
first Pllmoor and Boardman and in 1772 Francis
Asbury, who was to become first bishop in that great
sect in America. Soon a conference was called at
PhUadelphia, having ten ministers representing over
eleven hundred members, with a network of circuits
extending over most of the colonies. No doubt
the religious intensity aroused by these evangelists
aided the colonists to endure the great stress of the
Revolutionary War. As the war opened several of
the preachers returned to England but Asbury re
mained. As the various states proceeded to frame their
own constitutions there was a universal purpose that

442 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
religious beliefs and practices should be free. In
the Virginia Convention the first draft suggested
toleration of all religions. Madison objected to
the word toleration as implying an established re
ligion, rather having said, as was adopted, "All
men are equally entitled to the free service of re
ligion according to the dictates of conscience."
Jefferson declared, "God hath created the mind free,
and to suffer the civil magistrate to introduce his
power into the field of opinion destroys all religious
liberty." In Maryland the old bitter contest be
tween CathoHcs and Protestants was allayed by the
new struggle so that the Legislature made all equal
in the law. In South Carolina although being set
tled near the coast by loyal Englishmen and the
uplands more by those who had a grievance, the sects
in final adjustment were practically granted equality.
Nearly the same situation was In North Carolina,
where the religious scruples of the upland people
termed Regulators had to be heeded. When Rhode
Island in the final touches of its new constitution
found that a clause of its old charter remained, dis
franchising Catholics, it was promptly stricken out.
Intensely patriotic Vermont when it applied in vain
for admittance into the new confederacy required
every denomination to observe the Lord's day by
keeping up some form of worship, and further that
its representatives to the Legislature should declare
their belief in God, in the Scriptures, and in the
Protestant religion. In Connecticut and other New
England states the new Legislatures were slow to
change the property relations from an establishment

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
to fuU equality of the denominations but in all it
was gradually reached. StiU, taxes to support the
standing order were insisted on for a space into the
nineteenth century.
The Continental Congress as far as it was cap
able of doing so brushed aside the favors to any
one sect by the colonial laws. The Federal Con
stitution and the First Amendment to it precluded
forever any establishment of religion in America.
It is no wonder that Gladstone from his high insight
and broad statesmanship could say:
"As the British Constitution is the most subtile or
ganization which has proceeded from progressive his
tory, so the American Constitution is the most wonder
ful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain
and purpose of man."
Says a historian :
"The American Revolution was but the application
of the principles of the Reformation to civil govern
ment." The influence of the American Revolution upon
Europe was immediate and marked. The scepticism
in France was greatly lessened by the devout trust
in God shown by the Americans. The Emperor of
Austria, impelled by the example of liberty in the
new republic, proclaimed freedom of religion in his
dominion. The separation of church and state in
France marking the first decade of the twentieth
century, the steps toward it in Spain, are alike

444 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
brought forward by the success of such separation
in America.
With independence gained, the national expansion
may be said truly to have begun. What was but a
drizzle over the AUeghanies before the Revolution
ary War now became a flood. The emigrants nur
tured in eastern homes and under the influence of
an older community took with them the high prin
ciples of their eastern culture and progress.
Schouler writes, "The immigrant west took with him
his implements, a strong arm, and a stout heart and
a loving helpmeet, and God over all. These were
his dependence and his thought."
Not alone the Baptist itinerary went with the set
tlers over the mountains. The Methodist itinerants
were sent along even before the fullness of the migra
tion. Following them as early as 1788 Bishop As
bury crossed the mountains, organized a Conference
out of those tireless itinerants at Keyswoods, Ten
nessee, appointing them to extend circuits over all
the region. These men did the adventurous work
of hunting out the families, preaching the gospel,
building rude churches, marrying the young couples,
burying the dead. But even before these Itinerants
local preachers were at work through much of the
region. Let three of them, William Shaw, Thomas
Lakin, and John Jacobs be honored In history for
their superior preaching powers and vast heroic
toil. The people dubbed them the three bishops.
Other denominations also did noble work In the
new west, one minister often having charge of two
or more congregations, adopting In fact the itine-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 445
rant system of the Methodists. In some instances a
community or a vlUage In the east would almost
entirely pass together to the west taking with them
their pastor and schoolmaster. Thus in 1817 there
passed through HaverhiU, Massachusetts, a train
of sixteen wagons from Durham, Maine, with a hun
dred twenty people with their pastor, for Ohio.
More formidable to the emigrants than mountains
or prairies or swollen rivers were the native races,
savages with human instincts and backward ethics.
They deemed themselves owners of the country, its
broad hunting grounds and rivers of fish. The
general government and mostly the territorial
governments made treaties with the tribes to find
them again and again Infringed and broken either by
the Indians or by the imperious, avaricious whites.
In vain did Washington and after him other presi
dents labor to do justice to the tribes throughout
the middle west. At an early time a territory was
planned for them exclusively where they could be
the wards of the general government alone. Grad
uaUy after bloody wars the decimated tribes were
forced into that territory. The natives once re
moved to the Territory were given schools, teachers,
missionaries. But the high spirit of those splendid
savages could poorly appreciate even the paternal
interest of the government and the Christian inter
est of the missionaries. The cattle given by the
government for stock raising they would kill and
eat, whUe the farming machinery sent them they
would break up and use for fuel.
Not only among the tribes collected In the Terri-

446 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
tory did the churches establish missions, but among
those still scattered over the west. For these pur
poses the Catholics with their traditions for kind
liness among the natives had special success, as did
the Quakers with simUar traditions in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere. The old story of missionaries sacri
ficed by exposure and zeal was here and there re
peated. In Oregon a whole missionary station was
thus blotted out under the tomahawk and the flam
ing torch. A few tribes were so hostile that mis
sions could not be opened among them. The per
sistent, patient toil of the various missionaries has
told. By the twentieth century most of the nations
gathered in the Territory or still on reservations have
more or less accepted Christianity. It remains also
for the same century, by incorporating the Indian
Territory into the state of Oklahoma, to give citizen
ship rights to the natives gathered there, to allow
land and permanent place and to put the ballot in
the hands of ninety thousand aborigines. An Indian
from Kansas sits in the American Congress.

CHAPTER XLVI
The free religious thought and practice in Amer
ica, not having ceased from colonial times, still lead
devout souls to this continent. Most of the world
migrations like the Celtic and Teutonic to western
Europe are hidden in the dimness of prehistoric time.
But the one now thronging America is in modern
knowledge and open vision. Railways and steam
boats superseding the ox team and camel and horse,
have made it possible for a million a year to cross
continents and oceans to reach this land of promise.
These immigrants are mostly from lands with a
thousand years of civilization and Christianity.
Throngs of the Roman Catholic faith and of the
Greek church have hurried to our shores. Among
them are some sceptical free thinkers and even avowed
atheists. Nearly all are deficient in the principles
of free institutions and the spirit of our evangelical
Christianity. They have quietly exerted an ex
pansive force on the American spirit. The Puri
tanism of the north had kept the vision narrow in
that part of the country, while at the south slavery
had hindered progress along best lines. Influences
brought by the migrants have been active in chang
ing these things. The religious life has largely
ceased to be sectional and provincial. The Amer
ican Sabbath is in a fair way to be lost since such
a vast European influence has come to this country.
Possibly some of the Puritan exactions were of
447

448 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
human make instead of coming from heaven's will,
but as a holy day it is passing. The Jews, observing
another day as the Sabbath, are clamoring for legal
rights to work on Sunday. The Second Advents
put in similar claim. Other undesirable elements
have been brought oversea by the Immigrants.
During the earlier movement little systematic at
tention was given to the spiritual needs of these in
coming floods. But In the later decades the churches
represented in the lands from which so many have
been coming have done nobly to meet the religious
needs of their people on their arrival in the United
States. The superior organization of the Roman
Catholic Church has been used with good effect in
meeting the foreigners of that sect. A similar effort
all along has been put forth by the Lutherans to
meet the needs of those of that faith, their success
also having been most noble. As the Jews have
flocked to America from the bloody persecutions of
Russia and other lands their people already In Amer
ica have used great sums to aid those seeking a land
of liberty and rights. Other sects organized in the
old world have done much to meet their fellow wor
shipers as they landed In the United States. It Is
alarming to think what would be the spiritual con
dition of these masses had not the churches met
them with familiar ministrations. Most of the sects
already established in the United States had a fatal
spirit of letting the immigrants alone. Probably
the American principle that one denomination should
not actively proselyte another, carried out in this
country as nowhere else, caused this neglect,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 449
But the various churches are awakening to the
fact that after all done by the Catholics and the
Lutherans and by the Greek Church much more
should be done to evangelize these masses flooding
America. To this end many influences have lately
been set in motion. Representatives of more than
thirty denominations meet the migrants at Ellis
Island, New York, to help them in the new condi
tions. People are addressed in their native
tongues, are aided In getting onward to their destina
tion, have the New Testament and tracts in their
own language put into their hands, direction given
to churches and to other religious helps. What is
done at Ellis Island Is done more or less fully at
other great ports of entrance, Philadelphia, San
Francisco, Boston, Baltimore. Missions are being
established In the congested slums, college settle
ments, temperance houses, deaconess' homes, in
stitutional churches, libraries set up, and other
beneficent projects to bring forward these people
to better life and ways. Besides these special plans
of good to the foreign people a constant ingather
ing to the churches all over the land is going on.
The fateful visit to Jamestown in 1619 of the
Dutch man-of-war to sell blacks as slaves was not
wholly welcomed by the colonists, but the slave trade
and the use of slaves by the plantation owners were
made obligatory by the home government. The evil
genius then let loose has from that day to this been
an ominous presence in American life. Other colo
nies followed Virginia. Ship owners in New England
engaged in the nefarious traffic. Only small num-

460 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
bers, however, were used in the northern colonies.
The horrors of the passage to America prostitute
the words that would be used to describe them. In
Pennsylvania their lot was ameliorated so they were
helped to mental and moral uplift and were pro
tected in the marriage relation. Not only were
Negroes and Redskins thus enslaved but the home
government picked up stray children on the streets
of London and other cities whom they sent as slaves
to the colonies. Convicts and even prisoners of war
were sent to the same bondage.
In those stirring decades the Quakers took early
steps in opposition to the system. The German
immigrants in Pennsylvania tried to make the con
dition of the slaves more easy. Through the in
fluence of George Fox the Quakers of that colony
were forbidden to engage in importing Negroes and
when owning them were to use them well. So ear
nestly was the matter pressed that by 1780 not a
single slave was in possession of a Quaker. In
South Carolina the Salzburgers thought it right to
keep slaves if their Christianization was undertaken.
As the Revolutionary period approached with its
hot insistence of rights many of the colonists, more
especially at the North, where the slave labor was not
very remunerative, grew dissatisfied with slavery.
In spite of what the Quakers had done, says the his
torian, L. W. Bacon:
"The great anti-slavery society of the period in ques
tion was the Methodist Society. It publicly declared
in the Conference of 1780 that slavery is contrary to
the laws of God, man and nature, and hurtful to so-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 451
ciety; contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure
religion, adding, that which we would not that others
should do to us and ours."
As time passed the cleavage between slavery and
freedom grew broader and broader. The Christian
consciousness in the churches and out of them came
to feel more and more that what was morally wrong
could not be made legally right. As the struggle be-
irrepresslble the great churches, Presbyterian, Metho-
tween freedom and slavery became intensified and
dist and Baptist, taking grounds against slavery,
caused the sections of those denominations at the
south to separate from the north portions. At the
south men appealed to the Bible in support of their
institution by that claiming their cause to be just.
Many of the abolitionists, pleading the apathy of
the churches, impatient that God should be under
stood as allowing such evil, drifted into infidelity.
Gradually it became the absorbing theme in all life,
social, religious and literary, while in politics it
stirred a very blaze of conflict.
When the Civil War broke out the churches of the
north sprang forward in patriotic defense of the
union. Pulpits no longer gave forth an uncertain
sound. No longer were preachers gagged. As
chaplains, officers in the line, as privates in the
ranks, they went to the war. As if the religious
consciousness had been too long suppressed, Chris
tian men along with others rushed to the front.
Churches and devout homes were denuded of their
strong men. Into camp and battle, into bivouac
and hospital, they carried the habit of prayer.

452 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
Nor was it less a religious question at the south.
The split in the sects twenty years before over the
institution had intensified the spirit. Now it was
to be settled by the awful gauge of battle on more
than two thousand hard-fought fields.
With the blacks at last made free by the Emanci
pation Proclamation and a large part of the south
occupied by Union forces, the various denominations
of the north entered on a more or less formed pur
pose to help forward the liberated slaves in the vari
ous forces of civilization. Teachers were sent to
open schools among them, chaplains were furnished
their temporary villages, work was given them In
the army. During the decades following, the
northern churches pushed their organized work
among the negroes, founding permanent schools and
colleges, putting up church buildings, educating
teachers, professional men and preachers, directing
to industrial ways, to home making, and to a thou
sand elements of a better life. To the honor of the
religious sentiment north and south, if slow when
these people were slaves, let it now be said that It
is doing vastly for the blacks. High-minded persons
in each race have seen that both must rise together.
The superb individual positions attained by negroes
in business, in art, poetry, eloquence, the profes
sions, and in many other activities, suggest what
could be reached after a thousand years of advance
in civilization. They are intensely patriotic, lovers
of home life, pious. At the Inter-church Federation
in 1905 it was declared by one speaker from the
south, "No man in this audience ever saw a negro
sceptic."

CHAPTER XLVII
One result of awakening to national issues in
United States seems to have been that drinking
habits were doing immense harm, detrimental alike
to the individual and to the public. As early as
1783 the Methodist Conference placed in its rules
for those joining the societies that "to make spirit
uous liquors, sell or drink them in drams is wrong
in its nature and consequences." The preachers by
teaching and example were to lead the people to put
away the evil. Such rule was but the repetition of
the rule given forth a half a century before at
Wesley's Conference In England. The blasting
effects of the evil caused local temperance societies
to be formed in different sections of the country, so
that by 1826 when the American Society for the
Promotion of Temperance was started in Boston,
the movement quickly assumed a national phase.
Various religious sects began following the
Methodists. The Presbytery of Cayuga in 1813
took ground In favor of temperance societies. In
vestigations into poverty conditions by the Humane
Society, first in Philadelphia and soon in New York,
showed that one-seventh of the population lived on
charity, and that of this number seven-eighths fell
to that place through strong drink. No less than
eighteen hundred licensed saloons were active in
New York. The first national convention was in
1833 at Philadelphia with four hundred forty dele-
453

454 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
gates from twenty-two states. The principle of
total abstinence was not formally recognized till the
national convention at Saratoga in 1836. Soon
after this the Washington movement began in Balti
more. Its growth was phenomenal. At the first
anniversary a thousand reformed men were in pro
cession at Baltimore. The movement spread far
beyond that city and men by the ten thousand were
reformed. The movement was to receive two important helps.
John B. Gough signed the pledge, coming at once
before the public as a temperance speaker of un
rivaled powers whose fiery appeals led thousands to
abandon their cups. A few years later that Catho
lic apostle of temperance. Father Mathew, came to
America, spending two years going through all parts
of the country and Inducing his native countrymen
and others In great numbers to adopt temperance
ways. The Good Templars and Rechabites gained
national growth and greatly fostered the cause. A
World's Temperance Convention, a large and im
portant gathering. In 1863 met in New York. The
temperance movement was first taken into politics
in 1869 by the formation of the national Prohibi
tion party. Three years later James Black was
nominated for President but secured only a few thou
sand votes. Since that time the party each presi
dential year has put a candidate into the field.
One of the mightiest forces for temperance in
America is the Woman's Christian Temperance Un
ion. What was denominated the Ohio Crusade be
gun at HlUsboro, December, 1873, when one woman,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 455
Mrs. Eliza Thompson, led others to join with her
and then in a body proceeded to the saloons re
monstrating with the occupants and obtaining leave
to sing hymns and to pray in the barrooms. This
method of combating the evils of liquor seUing
spread from that beginning over all the states until
thousands of saloons were prayed out of existence.
Following such a beginning of the Crusade, the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union was organ
ized, thus projecting against the saloon a new force
for God and Home and Native Land. It was most
fortunate early in the history of the movement that
Frances E. Willard was placed at the head of it, a
woman marked with great executive ability, by un
wavering Christian faith, of winning personality,
and of high oratorical powers. Under her active,
dominating genius the organization was soon estab
lished in aU the states and territories, and national
conventions crowded by thousands were held each
year. In 1883 the World's Christian Temperance
Union was organized by her. The work in United
States has more than forty departments of activity,
thus covering broad fields and bringing varied tal
ents into play, using public speakers, the press, peti
tion to Legislatures and Congress, with no end of
toil and persistence. Of special worth has been the
introduction of Scientific Temperance Instruction
into the public schools of all the states and terri
tories, using carefuUy prepared text-books. It being
foimd that even good laws for temperance needed
careful enforcement, the Anti-saloon League has later
been organized in many of the states, its object

466 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
being to see that existing laws are enforced with
new and better ones attained. It is doing a mighty
work with ever-increasing powers, one proof of its
effectiveness being that everywhere the liquor inter
ests are fighting it.
Americans have always recognized the living re
lation between religion and education. Man's im
material structure is one. To develop his whole
powers broad culture touching every faculty needs
to be obtained. From the time of the earliest col
onists educational institutions paid heed to religious
demands, whether private schools for beginners or
those of higher studies reaching to the full-blown
college. Harvard, William and Mary, King's, Yale,
and others were church colleges from the start.
Gradually denominational lines were mostly obliter
ated so that freedom of attendance was unhindered.
One hundred fifty colleges for women only and
the doors open to them in almost all the other col
leges and universities in the land have presented to
American women chances for usefulness and progress
never before offered to woman. Woman, said to be
more devout than man, has greatly aided in the
kindlier, purer elements of modern civilization. Fol
lowing the lead of Denison and Toynbee in London
the American colleges have founded college settle
ments. The first in United States was founded in
New York, 1889, being started by women graduates
of several colleges. These settlements take the good
ways of life and the helpful uplift to better things
and the teachings of Jesus to the poor, the vice-
smitten and ignorant of the slums.

THE. ANGLO-SAXON RACE 457
Many of the colleges of the country are built up
and carried on by the churches In which are strong
religious infiuences. About one hundred fifty col
leges with twenty thousand students are thus con
ducted. Besides these colleges many of the secondary
schools are under control of some of the sects. In the
parochial schools of the Episcopalians, the Catholics,
the Lutherans and others, are taught their own tenets
and the positive truths of the Bible. Students pass
ing from the various secondary schools, whether
the high schools of the towns and cities or those of
the churches, are usually weU grounded In religious
teachings obtained not only from their instructors
but from their parents or in the Sunday Schools
and churches. The increase of church membership
among college students during a hundred years is
most gratifying. At the opening of the nineteenth
century only eight percent, of college students were
church members, at the opening of the twentieth
century careful statistics showed fifty-three percent.
of collegians thus related.
An indication of the religious life in America is
shown by the large number of theological schools
in action. In the colonial colleges little attention
was paid to any theological teaching. But as the
denominations took form they saw the need of
theological seminaries. The first real theological
seminary to be established in United States was in
1791 by the Sulpitian Fathers at Baltimore. In
1808 the Congregatlonalists opened one at Andover,
Massachusetts, followed in two years by the Dutch
in New Brunswick, New Jersey, soon to be followed

458 THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE
by the Presbyterians at Princeton, by this com
pleting the dream of Tennent's Log College. In
1819 the Episcopal Seminary was opened and within
twenty years seventeen others by the various de
nominations were founded. At the opening of the
twentieth century no less than one hundred sixty-
three theological schools were teaching thousands
of pupils. Churches have been better served, the
Bible more broadly comprehended, scholarship ele
vated, with the instruction to heart and brain.

CHAPTER XL VIII
The isolated cases of setting up Sunday Schools
before the close of the eighteenth century by no
means foreshadowed the vast growth of them reach
ing down to the present. The very earHest ones
started by the Dunkards at Ephrata ceased as their
schoolhouse was made a hospital for the wounded
at the Battle of Brandywine. Asbury's first one
of 1786 was in Hanover County, Virginia. This led
to a vote in the Methodist Conference of 1790 to
proceed to their organization and use. They were
to hold from six to ten o'clock and in the after
noon from two to six, and be open to black and white
alike. But they soon petered out. The same year
the Universahst Convention recommended that
schools be opened on Sunday to teach the children
of mechanics and laborers reading, writing, cipher
ing and the singing of psalms. Benjamin Rush was
determined that they should not be dependent upon
any creed or sect, in this broad view being sus
tained by Bishop White of the Episcopal Church,
but these plans being opposed by the Quakers, they
failed. While the Puritan opinions in New England of
the sanctity of the Sabbath led to customs deeming
a stroll on that day or picking a flower to be sin
ful, that section of the country was slow to take
up the Sunday School idea. But among the states
generaUy the churches awakened to the worth of the
459

460 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
new institution and organized them. Attempts to
use paid teachers was given over and most studies
but those of the Bible were also abandoned. Volun
tary teachers nobly offered their services in the
schools. Various methods were used to establish Sunday
Schools in the new west. Heroic leaders pushed out
among the pioneers, toUing, traveling, some to en
large the growth of their own denomination, some
out of love for God's scattered children. The Sun
day School Union has done nobly in establishing
schools without respect to denomination. Special
missionaries, superintendents of broad fields, the
Methodist circuit rider and presiding elder were
successful in establishing Sunday Schools. Often
such schools were the germ of a church that soon
followed the small beginning.
The Chautauqua plan of wide study grew out of
a Sunday School Teacher's Institute first held by
John H. Vincent and others on the banks of the beau
tiful Lake Chautauqua. A broader culture for the
Sunday School teachers was sought In that organiza
tion. Of worth, too, has been the International
Sunday School Associations by which in the last
decades of the nineteenth century most of the Sun
day Schools of Christendom have on the same day
studied the same lesson. The Catholics and Hebrews
have not affiliated with other sects in using the In
ternational series but have adopted special studies
of their own.
It is an inspiring fact that most of the million
and a half of Sunday School teachers do their work

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 461
unpaid, except with the sense of duty done to the
cause of the Master. Vast numbers of these men
and women are people of the highest college and
university culture, willing to put that culture to the
service of the Sunday School. The child In this age
not attending Sunday School Is unfortunate since
it is one of the highest civilizing forces now active.
For in connection with the direct study of the Bible
are many valuable activities, temperance societies,
mission study at home, clubs, brigades, and other
organizations to Interest and instruct. Since early
in the nineteenth century distinctly religious teach
ings have been left out of the text-books and les
sons, and while further on the reading of the Bible
in the public schools has been banished, the rise of
the Sunday School seems to have been demanded to
teach religion to the oncoming generations.
Along with the rise of the Sunday School has been
a remarkable call for Bibles and their wide distribu
tion. In 1802 a local Bible society was formed in
Philadelphia. By 1816, when the American Bible
Society was organized, nearly sixty societies were
ready to join the new purpose. Its managers repre
senting seven different denominations. It has fol
lowed closely In the steps of the older Bible Society
of England. The first year the copies Issued by the
American Society were about six thousand; by the
opening of the twentieth century, a million and a
half copies were given out each year. Auxiliary
societies by the thousand have been formed in vari
ous parts of United States. Joined with the British
society the issue each year is more than seven million

462 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
copies. Its agents, nine hundred, are as ubiquitous
as the missionaries. It is now printed in more than
four hundred languages and in the century of their
work the societies of the Anglo-Saxon people have
sent out two hundred eighty million copies. Every
where it has gone the Bible has wrought its magnif
icent mission, lifting Hfe still higher, aiding in en
largement of knowledge, helping progress, justice,
freedom. Alongside the Bible Society has run the Tract
Society. It began ten years later than the Bible
Society and since its beginning has prepared tracts
in one hundred seventy-three languages using each
year nearly one million dollars. Its colporteurs are
in all parts of America from Alaska to Panama
thence southward to Patagonia. It is put into the
hands of landing immigrants, also given to those
men, sometimes of foreign speech who dig coal and
iron, mine for gold and silver, run the harvest
reapers and threshers, or harvest rice and cotton
in southern fields.
One glory of United States is that no state church
has been established. Religion has been free. If
this lack of a state church has been cited across
the sea as a spawn of offensive sects, still the census
reports one hundred forty denominations ; In Great
Britain with its establishment there is said to be
more than two hundred sects.
Out of this full freedom of the religious life some
abnormal growths have sprung up. Robert Dale
Owen coming from the old country purchased a
large tract of land in Indiana, setting up a com-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 463
munity of the Trappist sect. But their loose views
of wedded life turned sentiment adverse to them.
This aided by an unhealthy locality and the igno
rance of many in the colony caused it gradually to
decay. Similar fate overtook certain communistic
organizations, as the Shakers and others.
One sect, however, begun the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, the Mormons, thrived on the
absurd claim to special revelation and to the book
of Mormon inscribed on golden plates by the ancient
inhabitants of America. These plates, it was
claimed, were dug out of the ground where burled
by those aboriginal people. After various attempts
at founding a colony, finally, under the vigorous
leadership of Brigham Young they started the city
of Nauvoo, Illinois. Their foul lives, their cheating
methods and their crimes brought them into armed
conflict with the people about them, and finally the
state authorities interfered. A fortunate revela
tion sent them west of the Mississippi and granted
polygamy. They did not halt till they crossed the
plains and mountains, settling in the valley .of the
great Salt Lake. They laid out a city, gathered
their scattered adherents, sent missionaries to
Europe and over United States for recruits.
Plurality of wives did not deter bright cultured
women from going to Salt Lake City with these
missionaries, and that doctrine enabled leading men
to follow the example of Brigham Young with his
nineteen wives and three score children. Their
defiance alike of decency and of American laws has
made them one of the menacing problems of Amer-

464 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
lean life. In the political field several of the west
ern states are dominated by them.
The rise of new sects has been grounded on va
rious causes. The Second Advents, looking for a
speedy coming of Christ to rule on the earth, arose
out of an exciting prediction of William Miller who
in 1843 thought he proved from Scripture that the
second advent was at hand. Though failure after
failure has marked the dates since Miller's time for
that coming, the sect has surprising vitality and
does great good. Spiritualism is another abnormal
belief. The sum of sixty thousand dollars was left
to the University of Pennsylvania by Seybert to be
used In investigating It. The well-known Professor
Joseph A. Leidy under this bequest, after extended
and careful investigation, found spiritualism to be
a tissue of imposition. Some think that spiritualism
is not in the realm of the supernatural, but in that
of the natural, which with mesmerism, hypnotism and
allied matters is under natural laws not yet under
stood. Still there are reported to be one hundred
fifty thousand of that sect in United States and a mil
lion and a half American people favorably interested
in it. More than six hundred of its organizations
carry forward its tenets.
One of the most recent sects to arise. Christian
Science, found a competent leader in Mrs. Eddy,
an American woman of great power to influence
people and to obtain money. It is understood that
these people believe there is no Ulness, but that one
is so truly a part of God that pain and sickness are
imaginary. Yet death seems to come to them of

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 465
all ages as to others not holding their notions.
Their organization has extended over much of the
country, and In 1906 their ornate cathedral in Bos
ton, said to have cost two million dollars, was dedi
cated. People by the ten thousand came to the
dedication from all parts of the world. The eager
longing for some satisfactory answer to questions
touching religious matters is no doubt responsible
for the rise of some of these remarkable forms of
belief. But the stability of the religious Hfe in this coun
try inheres in the great denominations that through
all the history of the nation have steadily pursued
their way. Churches, colleges, homes, preaching, Sun
day Schools, pastoral care, home mission work, have
been sustained and enlarged through their powerful
organization. The direct personal communion with
the Heavenly Father, that supremest reach of the re
ligious life, has been fostered by them. By them
every avenue of expanding growth has been broadened
and smoothed. Through these great denominations
personal character has been ennobled, family life
lifted to a higher, purer realm, ways opened for high
genius and tireless activity as well as good done to
the weakest of humanity.
Out of the Revolutionary War came an Increased
spirit of fraternity and charity among the denomina
tions. All had suffered, some were nearly blotted
out, but quick to recover. They helped to rally a
hopeful tone and feeling of mutual interest. The
church life was well-nigh universal. The Congrega
tlonalists, to be sure, were dominant in New England,

466 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
but were not confined to that locality. The Dutch
and Lutherans had a leading in the central states
while farther south the Episcopalians and Catholics
were getting on their feet, with the active Baptists
and pushing Methodists soon to aid in welding the
far separate states from Maine to Georgia and over
the mountains west to the Mississippi. The Con
stitution making the religious life free and open to
all was soon adopted, the various state laws were
gradually conformed to this requirement and the
spirit of fraternity grew with the thrill of the new
national Hfe.
But all along there had been many instances of
this spirit, for people of one sect had thrown open
their churches to people of another sect, ministers
of different faiths had preached for each other, and
on slight change of views or on none people and
pastors had gone from one denomination to another.
In the newly settled parts of the country a minister
of a sect. If differing from the church of a household,
yet was welcomed to that household. At last the
religious consciousness could rejoice in its freedom on
a new continent. No state church, no union with
politics, no sect dominating the others, allowed open
progress to all in the new nation.
Under this spirit practical steps together were
taken. In 1814 on the formation of the American
Board of Foreign Missions, the Congregatlonalists
leading, there were united with them the Presbyte
rians, the Dutch and the German Reformed Churches,
this union of work continuing nearly forty years
when the last three sects formed missionary societies

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 467
of their own. The American Bible Society, also,
was formed by representatives from most of the de
nominations, as was the American Tract Society.
Revivals, widespread in the early century and re
curring with special force a few years before the
Civil War, increased the fraternal spirit. The
thousand imperative voices In that war for aid and
sympathy and fellowship had a high power in bind
ing churches together, as the war had done in unit
ing the separate sections of the country into one
strong nation. The great conventions, as the
Evangelical Alliance In New York In 1873, aided the
spirit of fraternity In this country and beyond.
Similar results came from the sessions of the Young
Men's Christian Association, of those of the Young
People's societies, from the Student Volunteer Move
ment, from the Ecumenical Conferences, and other
gatherings. All aided and increased the work of
the churches, fostered philanthropic enlargement,
inspired to Christian education.
Among the denominations is a union of effort
made in certain sections for local missionary or
evangelistic activity. In Maine four sects, the
Baptists, Congregatlonalists, Methodists, Free Bap
tists, have united in a free federation for consider
ing questions relating to founding new churches, for
mission work in the state, to arbitrate In conflicts
arising between local churches, to study the union
of depleted churches, and other issues constantly
arising. Other states and several cities have fol
lowed suit. In Buffalo all the churches to the num
ber of one hundred twenty-four united in the pur-

468 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
pose to take care of the city poor and from this ac
tion much good resulted. Syracuse with nine sects
put forth united efforts for the moral and spiritual
good of its people. In almost every town, though
if with only a few of the denominations represented,
union services, those of the week of prayer and
Thanksgiving as well as others, are commonly held.
These movements prepared the way for the latest,
grandest proposition done in this noble spirit. It
was more than a dream that took form in the last
of the nineteenth century and was projected into
the twentieth century, for the federation of the Amer
ican churches. As early as 1894 in New York, at
a gathering In the Madison Avenue Presbyterian
Church, a preliminary organization looking toward
a national federation was started. The next year
this Incipient organization met in Philadelphia with
broader plans and E. B. Sanford was made the
secretary to push the purpose. Out of these smaller
movements gradually grew one of national scope so
that in 1902 the first meeting of the wider plans
was held In Washington. There a call was made
for a gathering yet broader in its scope three years
later in New York. At the Washington Conference
the delegation called upon President Roosevelt who
at once said, "Well, there is a plenty of targets for
all to shoot at without shooting at one another."
The Interchurch Conference or Federation, held
in New York, October 15-16, 1905, was a gather
ing not equaled In scope and catholicity in all mod
ern Christianity. In it were gathered delegates
from thirty of the leading) Protestant denomina-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 469
tions of United States, representing twenty millions
of church members and many millions more of
those interested in the churches. The members
claimed no authorities over constituent bodies, had
no creed to offer, no set form of worship to pre
scribe, but met in fellowship and catholicity, in love
and mutual counsel, seeking means for encouraging a
higher religious life in churches and individuals as
well as uniting for a better civic spirit. They dis
cussed the evils to be opposed, the saloon, divorce,
Sabbath desecration, child labor, the social evil, the
confiict of capital and labor. Watchwords were Un
ion and Evangelism, while on a banner was written,
Co-operation, Federation, Love. One said that the
four notes of federation were mutual recognition,
mutual forbearance, mutual service, mutual prayer.
It was justly regretted by some of the speakers that
the Univer salists and Unitarians were not invited to
meet with the others. Still the sturdy antagonism
of the centuries were seen to grow decrepit, giving
way to a new life of fraternity and service and love.

CHAPTER XLIX
With the rapidly increasing wealth of the country
came a mighty wave of philanthropic gifts. The
rich lands yielded agricultural wealth. Mines dis
gorged their hidden treasures. Manufactures were
piling up riches. Railroads rolled fortunes into the
hands of their owners. Even by the first third of
the century, men grown rich were returning masses
of this wealth to the people. Colleges, Universities,
Theological Schools, Technical Institutions were
founded and endowed. Benefactions have touched
all grades from the kindergarten to the most highly
specified university courses. Millions have freely
been placed In the Chicago University by John D.
Rockefeller. Rich men have founded great libra
ries. Foremost among these is Andrew Carnegie who,
having made a gigantic fortune in America, has
founded libraries by the hundred throughout the
land. Picture galleries and museums have laid hold
upon the world's best products.
A unique benefaction is that of Mrs. Russell Sage
who has placed ten million dollars in a foundation,
the object being the improvement of social and Hv
ing conditions in United States. By Its means there
will be studied the causes of ignorance, poverty and
vice, with suggestions as to how to remedy them.
Hospitals to alleviate human suffering and to re
store the affiicted have so appealed to people of
means that the nation is blessed with them in all
470

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 471
its cities and considerable towns. For less observ
ant needs of God's children vast wealth has boon
poured out. While riches have been so mightily in
creased there is a feeling among Americans that
much of them should be consecrated to the good of
humanity and to the glory of God.
At the first the church buildings put up to ac
commodate the increasing population in towns and
cities and throughout the more densely settled parts
of the country were, owing to restricted means or
lack of taste in the builders, often small and of mean
appearance. But as numbers and wealth have in
creased new churches have been erected of noble
architecture, rich and commodious in design, of
great cost, to which the people have freely con
tributed. Great ornate cathedrals by those sects
requiring such buildings have been put up, rivaling
In their size and grandeur, in their cost and beauty,
the vastest piles in the old world. If the poor should
feel ill at ease in such elegance, more cheaply con
structed churches have everywhere been built, while
halls and rooms of every possible grade to capacious
theaters filled with vast crowds have been utilized
for worshipful people. The religious pj-actlces In
America have been very unconventional. From the
widow's mite to the vast sums that appear dum-
foundlng in their magnificence and dimensions, there
has always been a freedom and a continual tide of
giving. Reported by the press the large sums given
for philanthropies in 1906 ran above sixty-six mU
lion dollars and in 1906 above one hundred six mil
lion dollars. Never before in the history of the

472 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
world has such giving been seen. American Chris
tians have been learning to be doers of the word.
The Evangelical Alliance was formed as a result
of the deepening currents of the religious life among
English-speaking peoples. Before its formation In
1846 a sentiment through the press and in Chris
tian gatherings had found expression for united work
among the denominations. When the organization
in London took place, more than eighty pulpits in
that city had preaching in them by the delegates in
the speech of England, France, Germany and of
other peoples. The organization was hailed with
enthusiasm over all the world, people everywhere
seeing the reasonableness of such a movement. At
the General Council held in 1861 in London, repre
sentatives were present from all parts of the world,
from America, Asia, Africa, West Indies, and from
other countries. The world was getting tired of
theological combats and was eager to be doing work
for the truth. At the Paris Convention of 1856
urgent call was made for freedom of worship with
use of private conscience. The Prussian King was
anxious for a convention in his country so that of
1857 was held in Berlin. Four years later it was
held at Geneva, then at Amsterdam.
In 1873 the Evangelical Alliance was held In New
York. The Americans owing vast debts to all
European countries for civilization, letters, religion
and liberty, were glad to have the delegates coming
from those old countries see the growth from the
seed planted by them. Freedom in personal life and
liberty in religious life were doing their noble work.

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 473
The great successful sweep of Christian truth, though
put into various statements, stood in vivid contrast
to the fact that no new aggressive form of infidelity
was of late origin.
In connection with the Columbian Exposition at
Chicago in 1893 the Alliance held a monster conven
tion. The motto written in Latin as a kind of uni
versal tongue was, "We are one body in Christ."
Again and again the primary object was stated to
promote Christian union in work. In fraternal in
tercourse, and to manifest the unity of the church.
Many great gatherings, as the missionary confer
ences, had been Inspired by the Alliance. During
the fifty years of its work the fraternal feeling among
the denominations had largely increased. Philan
thropic movements, social settlements, kindergartens,
fresh-air funds, were all aided by this association.
The Inner Mission in Great Britain similar to Home
Missions in America grew out of the Alliance.
Many other organizations of various kinds had been
pushed forward by it. One thing being tried In
America was the Institutional Church. Such was
the Berkeley Temple in Boston. That held regular
Sabbath services with a Sunday School and through
the week was always open. It sustained services
for the Jews, the Greeks and for other races, had
a Young Men's Institute with lectures, concerts, the
invitation being by tickets with free seats. For
aiding young women it had a sewing school, taught
kindergarten methods and kitchen skill, had classes
in arithmetic, painting, German and French. Simi
lar undertakings, it was reported had been under-

474 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
taken in Denver and elsewhere. Money to sustain
these costly projects had been freely given by rich
laymen. Somewhat like the Evangelical AUiance in scope
and purpose is the Young Men's Christian Associa
tion. Like the other it was a product of London
religious life. About the middle of the nineteenth
century it was adopted in America. The purpose
is to work for the good of young men, aiding in
social life, mental culture, spiritual uplift and phys
ical improvement. It requires Its active members
to be Christians and in its associate members asks
for a good moral character. During the Civil War
it mostly directed the ministries of the Christian
Commission. Business men, seeing the worth of its
work for young men, have freely poured out money
to erect and sustain splendid buildings in most of
the great cities. In Boston recently a call was made
for five hundred thousand dollars to erect such a
house and In a few days it was all subscribed. Such
buildings offer libraries, reception rooms, gymna
siums, lecture rooms, baths, with many other val
uable and attractive features. In addition to the
strictly evangelical purposes, evening schools are
sustained for those busy during the day while train
ing schools, medical clubs and plans for saving funds
are kept in operation. In America, the Associations
number above two thousand with four hundred
splendid buildings and nearly two thousand paid
officers. Through the energy of American and
British workers Associations have been formed in
all parts of the Christian world. Says Rev. Dr.
Roswell Hitchcock:

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 475
"The omnipresence, I had almost said the omnipo
tence, of the Intercollegiate Young Men's College As
sociations is the great fact in the religious life of our
colleges to-day."
The worth of a similar organization among the
young women led to the formation of the Young
Woman's Christian Association which has grown to
pleasant proportions and success. Its start was in
the Ladies' Christian Union of New York in 1858.
A phase of its activities distinctly for service in col
leges and universities had Its rise in the Illinois Nor
mal University with special reference to the needs
of young women. In the Association four depart
ments of work are carried on. The first looks to
the physical well-being of the members, training in
gymnasium, health talks, outing clubs and the like.
The second department considers the social needs
where direction is given to receptions, to boarding
clubs, employment bureaus, and to similar matters.
The third, the intellectual, pays attention to libra
ries, lecture courses, musical and art clubs. The
fourth department is that of the spiritual needs of
the young women, having evangelistic meetings,
Bible study mingled with personal appeal and work.
The two organizations, the one among young men,
the other among the young women, are set up in all
the prominent educational institutions where co
education is conducted and are fruitful in cultivat
ing the higher nobler forces of the young life.
A most remarkable expression of the religious life,
freighted with vast benedictions to mankind, has
come in the organized activities of the young people

476 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
of the different denominations. At Portland, Maine,
in 1881, Rev. F. E. Clark, pastor of the WlUiston
Congregational Church, with "Faith in God, faith
in man," that New England creed which Lowell said
was ample for this life and for the next, began the
movement that has since covered the world. Hav
ing a group of young converts he called them to his
home, offered a constitution designed to promote
an earnest Christian life among those using it, to
increase their mutual acquaintance and in many
ways to make them more useful servants of God.
This constitution pledged all active members of the
organization to be present at every prayer meeting
unless detained by some absolute necessity and that
each one would take some part, however slight, in
every meeting. Departments were planned to seek
new members, to urge forward the slow, to reach those
outside the church, to furnish good literature and
put it with flowers in public places, to work in Sun
day School, and to aid in temperance and missionary
interests. They were to stay at home with the
children for the mother to go to meeting, to aid the
pastor, to form a hand-shaking brigade, and do other
social and religious duties.
Leaving the pastorate, Mr. Clark devoted himself
entirely to building up this new energy to Chris
tianity, traveling widely in its interests in America
and In other lands, setting the young people of the
churches at work in organized form. In the sixth
year of the twentieth century the Christian Endea
vor Society, the direct product of Mr. Clark's plan,
had in all parts of the world sixty-five thousand

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 477
societies with four million members. Various sects
under their own rules formed similar societies with
still more millions of workers. It is claimed by ear
nest toilers to be the most important organization
of modern times. It works hand in hand with the
Student Volunteer Movement, pushes for evangelism,
toils with all interested In fields of mercy and help,
heartUy encourages education in schools and colleges
and outside of them. Through these interblending
societies, whether under the name of Christian En
deavor or of those selected, a rich, high spirit of
fraternity among the various churches has been en
larged and made more intense. Out of it have come
magnificently equipped workers of both sexes whose
labors are of priceless worth to their fellow men.
It is not only an organization but an influence and
an inspiration.
Another result of the rising religious spirit is the
Student Volunteer Movement. Originating in 1886,
it rapidly spread among the student body of United
States and Canada, thence to Great Britain, and
soon all over the world. At the initial gathering
at Mount Hermon, two hundred fifty delegates came,
twenty-one of whom had already pledged to go as
missionaries. Foremost as moving spirits were Wil
der of Princeton, Tewksbury of Harvard and Clark
of Oberlin. Before the convention closed one hun
dred declared themselves willing and desirous, God
permitting, to become foreign missionaries. Wilder
and Forman were sent out to the colleges and in two
years when another convention was called they had
visited one hundred seventy-six Institutions in United

478 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
States and Canada. At the convention of 1888 in
Northfield an executive committee consisting of
John R. Mott, Robert P. Wilder and Nettie Dean
was appointed who vigorously pushed the work, visit
ing colleges, holding meetings, and pledging students
to volunteer for missionaries.
The movement did not purpose to become another
missionary society to send missionaries out itself,
but to act as a recruiting agency for missionary
boards already organized. It aimed to find students
willing to go to foreign fields who would prepare
themselves while in school to meet the requirements
of the Boards, who would thus be able to fill up the
ranks and increase the corps of missionaries as well.
The watchword chosen was, "The Evangelization of
the World In this Generation." Colleges in United
States and Canada numbered a thousand with two
hundred thousand students. In time the tireless
workers reached nearly all these institutions, find
ing in a few years more than two thousand young
people willing, if the way was opened, to go to the
foreign work. The college professors at first seemed
shy of the movement but by the time of the Detroit
Convention, 1894, they were present in considerable
numbers, giving their hearty sympathy and after that
their active support. The churches in all their
activities have felt the impulse.
Mr. Wilder, going out as a missionary to India,
stopped a year in Great Britain, impelling a simUar
movement there known as the Student Volunteer Mis
sionary Union which has had a most pleasing growth.
Mr. Wilder speaking at the Keswick Convention

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 479
of 1891, for but twelve minutes, led a few choice
souls to dedicate themselves to the missionary serv
ice. By these others were aroused, resulting in the
full formation of the movement. At the time of
Mr. Wilder's visit only two hundred of all the col
leges in Great Britain were expecting to go as mis
sionaries, but within six years twelve hundred in
those institutions were at the command of missionary
societies. All the great universities, Cambridge,
Oxford, Dublin, London, were in the current.
Shortly two hundred volunteers were at work in In
dia, and a large number in America were with them.
In 1896-7 John R. Mott made a tour of the world
to present the Student Movement to other peoples.
Everywhere his reception was most cordial and en
couraging. In Great Britain, on the continent, in
India, China, Japan, he met the colleges individually
or at delegated conventions. To a convention at
Shanghai no less than seventeen college presidents
came, some of them having spent three weeks to get
there, so important did they deem the movement
for their schools. The movement became not only
interdenominational but international. Mission col
leges themselves pledged volunteers among their own
people or to adjacent ones. So vast Is the territory
of India and multitudinous its people, as also of
China, that in those countries volunteers from na
tive colleges could be thought of as going to foreign
lands. A monster convention in 1902 met in Toronto,
Canada. Delegates to it came from all parts of the
world. Reports as at the great missionary confer-

480 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ences, were brought of the work in the various parts
of the world, giving cause for great enthusiasm.
Already of the Volunteers it was known that 1953
had taken their departure for foreign fields. A
project started by the Methodists of Canada called
the Students' Campaign and taken up by other
churches was in fuU sweep. This campaign was in
creasing missionary information not only among the
Volunteers but especially among those not pledged,
and arousing enthusiasm in the young peoples'
societies. Increase of power was noticeable in
churches that were individually sending out mission
aries. Again in 1906, twenty years from the beginning
of the Volunteer Movement, the Convention met at
Nashville, Tennessee. Four thousand delegates were
there besides other thousands of interested spectators
of the inspiring scene. Thousands had to be refused
attendance owing to want of accommodation, al
though the great Ryman Auditorium could seat six
thousand people. Seven hundred colleges were rep
resented. Working in perfect harmony were rep
resentatives of more than fifty denominations. Fed
eration was not in theory but in fact. An appeal
had come up from the Conference of the Foreign
Missionary Boards of United States and Canada
held in Nashville shortly before for a thousand young
people each year to go to foreign fields. More than
a hundred of those in convention were already under
orders from the missionary boards to go out during
the year. John R. Mott, chairman of the executive
committee, asked for twenty-five thousand dollars a

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 481
year for four years to carry on the work and in a
few minutes the sum of ninety thousand dollars was
raised. The students alone had given the preceding
year to missions no less than eighty thousand dol
lars. Of the two thousand two hundred eighty-
seven sent to mission fields from America during the
four years preceding, forty-one percent, were Vol
unteers. The compact In the cabin of the Mayflower was
the first constitution ever written based upon equal
rights of all men as members of the state. They
deemed, however, that the state should maintain re
ligion, punish blasphemy, heresy, and other acts con
trary to church teaching. If in that compact there
was the germ of a free state, there was also the seed
of free Christianity. Each indeed was but a germ
but was destined to grow in the free air and wide
expanse of the new continent.
But even In the colonies that decreed religious
liberty was full religious freedom not allowed. It
required the Revolutionary War and the progress
of years afterward to drive out all the virus of cus
tom and bigotry. But gradually public opinion,
that tidal force mightier in United States than con
stitutions, swept away every legal vestige of the
hateful colonial laws in the current of absolutely
equal religious rights. Not only public opinion but
the courts declared for those rights. But public
opinion after all was the successful regulator. As
late as in 1873, when in some states it was held in
law that belief in God and in future rewards and
punishments were required for holding civic office.

482 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
public opinion steadily made them a nullity. Other
religious tests shared the same fate. Judge Cooley
on Constitutional Limitations says that the Con
stitution forbids any law respecting an establish
ment of religion or the compulsory support by taxa
tion or otherwise of religious Instruction. Further,
that it forbids compulsory attendance upon religious
worship, or restraint upon the free exercise of relig
ion according to the dictates of conscience or any
restraint upon the expression of religious beliefs.
Churches are recognized by law only as corpora
tions to hold property, not as religious bodies.
Property held for the churches by colonial laws be
fore the Revolution was after that confirmed by the
courts. Thus in 1801 in Virginia the Legislature
passed an act that the vacant glebe land should be
sold for the benefit of the poor, but on appeal the
Supreme Court of United States annulled it, holding
that the original grant could not be revoked. As
the division occurred in the Presbyterian Church,
making the Old School and the New School, each
claimed a part of the property, but the Supreme
Courts decided that property rights remained alone
with the old school section since by that as a cor
poration the property was attained. As yet the
courts of the different states have no uniform de
cisions. In the famous Girard case the Pennsyl
vania court said:
"Though certain features of the common law may be
derived from the Christian religion the law does not
attempt to enforce the precepts of Christianity on the
ground of its sacred character or divine origin."

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 483
The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that acts evU in
their nature or dangerous to the public welfare may
be forbidden and punished though sanctioned by
one religion and prohibited by another.
The wise men framing the Constitution put into
one of its paragraphs, "No religious test shall ever
be required as a qualification for any office or public
trust under the United States." As the document
was placed before the several states for approval
Rhode Island demanded as a condition of acceptance
that an amendment be made so that the first amend
ment guarding the rights of the new citizen was
adopted by the states, "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibit
ing the free exercise thereof." These two short
sentences have stood in the religious history of the
new nation like a granite promontory jutting into
the ocean's surges. The hope and aim and dream
of the Pilgrim Fathers were then brought to a full
legal fruition. It made the religious consciousness
free on the new continent. The fourteenth amend
ment to the Constitution forbidding any state to
make or enforce any law abridging the privileges or
amenities of citizens of United States, could well be
construed as forbidding any religious test or estab
lishment. The unrest apparent in society, a sign no doubt
of progress, is in later years taking form in America
in socialist agitation and organized working men.
The distinct socialist movement in German politics
and among the working men of Great Britain, by
which a working man was placed In the ministry.

484 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
shows how the Teutonic race regards the issues taken
up by the classes hitherto under too many limitations.
In a free country like America, with press, speech,
church free, such a great question as the relation
of labor and capital can be treated without the pres
ence of anarchy and atheism. A union with the
Christian spirit is heartUy sought by the most recent
leaders of the socialist movement. Indeed, the feel
ing of liberty given by religion leads to the asser
tion of rights urged by the socialists. Many leaders
of the movement are preachers of the various sects,
either in the active pastorate or formerly in that
work. Where the religious consciousness is so gen
eral Inside the churches and out of them, there is a
growing opinion that Christianity can give the right
solution to the questions arising between capital and
labor, between rights and restrictions. Hence one
wing of the socialists call their movement most nat
urally Christian Socialism. Working men every
where could find sympathetic churches if they had
not fallen into the habit of condemning all alike.
Sometimes those who scold most about the churches
accept the social teachings of Jesus both in word
and example. Crowds listening to bitter socialistic
speeches have sometimes hooted references to the
churches but cheered the name of Jesus.
The Christian Socialists claim that the churches
should follow the teachings of the Master and should
return to the primitive conditions of the real gospel.
These claims would keep the spiritual element largely
at the front. The Encyclopedia Britannica says,
"The ethics of Socialism are identical with the ethics

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 485
of Christianity." The socialists plead for justice in
the distribution of wealth produced by labor. The
vast corporations, in so many instances using the
wealth already accumulated to make more, are con
sidered by the socialists as wrong, dangerous, oppres
sive. Common brotherhood and universal rights are
demanded as the gift of heaven to all men. Socialism
stands for peace as opposed to war. Socialism, see
ing that Christian teachings would save from war,
stands for international friendship. If the broadest
rights are sought it is claimed that they cannot be
reached with society as it Is now fashioned. It is
the old cry for rights, as old as evolving civilization.
In Anglo-Saxon progress the claims of toilers have
with increasing knowledge and larger aspirations
grown higher and higher.

CHAPTER L
When after the capture of Quebec, Canada passed
to British control, the good offices of English freedom
were at once apparent. The French population,
then about all the people in the colony, were granted
greater freedom than was given them by the govern
ment of France. Little interference was made in
their plans of church government or service. The
parishes and priests were not disturbed and soon the
Quebec Act recognized by Parliament the legal rela
tions, new indeed in British law, of a Roman Catholic
bishop and proper diocesan authority. Tithes to
support their clergy and system were continued and
the French language was not forbidden. Some of
the monastic orders were banished but after a while
were permitted to return, and soon built establish
ments In the prominent towns. This gift of rights,
a diplomatic stroke of British statesmanship, made
the French Canadians loyal to Great Britain in the
period of the impending Revolutionary War. They
were importuned by the Americans to join in the
claim for independence but In vain. Some commis
sioners were sent to them for this purpose. Even
Bishop John Carroll of Maryland urged them to join
with the States but they flatly refused.
As population Increased and riches accumulated,
pushing beyond their original province, they erected
large parish churches, more stately monasteries, ele
gant nunneries, and ornate cathedrals, in all parts
486

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 487
of the country. They have persistently used the
rights of English subjects. In the westward move
ment they have been able to send their priests along
with the couriers du hois, along, too, with the settlers
in Winnipeg and to the Pacific coast, not neglecting
the Hudson Bay fur-gatherers or the scattered In
dian tribes. Their numbers and superior organiza
tion, their systematic care of their people, the prog
ress in education and In liberal politics have been
similar to that of other races in Canada. They
mostly sustain their own schools and fret under the
laws that tax them for public secular schools. In
Lower Canada it Is said that a third of the landed
property Is in the hands of the hierarchy. Their
organization at the end of the nineteenth century
consisted of a Cardinal, six archbishops, more than a
score of bishops, fifteen hundred priests and two mil
lion people. The brilliant premier, Laurier, Is a
gift of the French race and of the Catholic
faith. After Wolfe and Montcalm, Anglican chaplains
came with the British troops of occupation. As
they had opportunity, these chaplains set up religious
services, organized a few regular parishes, and
opened schools for the children of the soldiers. Later
attempts were made to convert the French to
Protestant ways. Some Anglican clergy of French
speech, natives of Switzerland, engaged in this pur
pose but their efforts were futile. The American
War of Independence caused an exodus of the loyal
ists to British Provinces. Their number has been
estimated at twenty thousand to forty thousand.

488 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Most of them, being of the Anglican faith, found min
istrations to suit them and sympathy for their loy
alty. At the same time they added valuable ele
ments, sturdy and liberty-loving, to the provinces and
to the Anglican Church.
In 1791, the home government in arranging the
religious matters of Canada set apart one-seventh
of the public lands, called the Clergy Reserve, to be
used in support of the Protestant religion. At once
it was claimed by the Anglicans, since that denom
ination was the only one recognized by law as estab
lished in England, that all this land belonged to
them. To this the Scot Presbyterians objected,
since in Scotland their sect was the Establishment.
Finally a pittance of such lands was granted to the
Presbyterians but to no others. The Establishment
held strong opposition to Dissenters, the laws being
so construed that they were not allowed to perform
the marriage rites, while social distinctions were as
much Insisted upon if not more than in the home
country. Such things led to much bitterness and
controversy between the sects and hindered the prog
ress of the religious life. Just across the line the
Americans had religious liberty absolutely ; why, the
Canadians urged, could not similar rights be enjoyed
by this other people of the Anglo-Saxon race.
As could be expected, the pious, pushing Scots
were on hand in Canada. People of that denomination
were found among the refugees from United States
and these were as eager for preaching and church
privileges as those direct from Europe. To meet
the calls of those scattered pioneers, ministers every-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 489
where and of every denomination had to turn Itin
erants. These itinerants had to thread dim forests
among dangerous beasts, must often ford swift-flow
ing streams, sometimes swim across deep ones, go
wet, hungry, pinched with poverty, and put up with
miserable accommodations and poor fare. But they
went. Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans,
Catholics. It is impossible to tell what the Christian
Anglo-Saxon will not do for the spiritual good of his
fellow man. Yet not all the people of Canada were
pious and eager for the gospel. From Montreal at
the end of the eighteenth century John Mitchell
wrote, "If ever the world was idolized and heaven and
Christ neglected it is surely in this place."
Of the Presbyterians, several home divisions were
represented who early began to seek union of their
divided forces. The home churches helped them with
ministers, money to purchase Bibles, catechisms,
tracts, and other helps. As the project of Lord Sel
kirk took form In establishing a colony In the Red
River Valley of the west, one of his promises to the
Scot Highlanders and others was that they should
have a pastor of their own. Delay marked this plan
but it was finally reached to the joy of all. So fine
was the system of the Catholics that priests were sent
there when only two or three families of their people
were in Winnipeg. Sometimes there seems to have
been a lack of the sweet spirit of Christianity among
the sects. The freedom-loving colonists objected to
the superiority in the new country of any one denom
ination. The Catholics of Lower Canada objected
to the incoming of other sects nor were the Presby-

490 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
terians always tolerant of the invading Methodists
and Baptists from United States,
One burning cause of animosity among the denom
inations was the matter of clergy reserve of lands.
Appeals were made to the local courts and from these
it was carried to Great Britain where eminent legal
opinion was that those rich reserves belonged In
larger share to the Anglicans, and in smaller share to
the Presbyterians, since these two sects were the
established ones In England and in Scotland. This
opinion settled nothing. The outside people of Can
ada would not let the matter rest. When the col
onies had a Legislature of their own and the Lower
House voted that an equitable division of it should
be made among the sects, the Upper House, the
Council, refused concurrence. Finally in 1864 a set
tlement of the vexed question was reached, a vast
proportion going to the Anglicans, a lesser part to
the Presbyterians, while other denominations were
given a moiety. Later the income of the remainder
of these lands was directed to educational and secu
lar purposes, and the clergy of aU the churches were
supported alone by voluntary funds.
Even before the end of the eighteenth century,
Canada was subjected to an invasion from United
States though of a peaceful kind. The intense Bap
tist preachers and tireless Methodist itinerants
crossed the dividing line of the two countries, whether
that line was river, lake, or an invisible one along
some specified parallel of latitude. Other denomina
tions came also as settlers or for the sake of making
converts, but those two seemed to have been most la-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 491
borious with most remarkable toil and success. The
Baptists, with a dogma they deemed necessary for
salvation, could well be intense and immerse In the
limpid streams of the new country, whether in the
summer heat or in the blast of winter, at a hole cut
through the ice, such people as were converted under
their preaching. Their organization of independency
eminently suited many of the freedom-loving settlers,
for the spirit of rights from the first was strong
among them. This spirit was to bring to Canada
eminent blessings of religious liberty that were to aid
other British colonies the world over to similar
liberty. The Methodist itinerant system enabled that de
nomination to send its preachers not only where there
was a call from the people but also to regions where
no Methodists were known to have settled, but where
it was deemed that the people needed the gospel. The
first of those restless itinerants to be sent from the
states was one Losee, going from Conference with the
significant direction "to range at large." His was
the beginning of the peaceful invasion. He opened
work that was steadily enlarged as was that of the
Baptists and others among the scattered settlers.
Circuits among the Methodists, as in the States, were
formed over which the itinerants went in regular
order, organizing classes, societies, and putting up
churches. Some of those Circuits were across vast
stretches of country, one in Upper Canada being two
hundred forty mUes in extent. All those early min
isters preached to the people anywhere they could get
them to assemble, in log cabins, barns, stores, under

492 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the trees. Such adaptations to conditions suited the
brave pioneers. While the War of 1812 had been
most disastrous to the rehgious Hfe its effects grad
ually wore away. At a Methodist Conference held
in the locality of Lundy's Lane where but seven years
before the American and British armies met in one
of the bloodiest battles of the war, now some Amer
ican and Canadian young men who fought against
each other in that battle knelt together at the altar
of the Elizabethtown meeting-house for ordination.
As the ceremony ended they clasped each other in
their arms and through streaming eyes gave the kiss
of peace.
By 1817 the Wesleyans from England had entered
upon systematic work, having formed circuits at
Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and at several places
in the eastern provinces. Their success and influence
were fine from the start and of importance to Can
ada. Many of the people from the old country liked
their ways better than the work of preachers from
United States. In 1821 it was agreed between the
Wesleyans and the Methodists from the States that
one should confine themselves to Lower Canada, the
other to Upper Canada.
From such beginnings of the various denomina
tions the phases of the religious life, as seen In the
Canadian churches, grandly developed, mostly in a
pleasing spirit of amity. One cause of friction after
another was removed. The legislative assembly was
granted, in 1860, by the home government, the power
to settle the church relations, and It promptly de
clared complete religious equality among the de-

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 493
nominations. Sectarian schools were fostered for a
while but on the formation of the Dominion of Can
ada a system of non-sectarian schools was set up, and
later still, a secular system was projected, sustained
by the home government by which taxes were laid to
support them.
In all parts of the provinces the spirit of constitu
tional freedom was Insisted upon and gradually at
tained. Before the close of the eighteenth century,
this gift of a high Christian civilization was begin
ning to show itself, and as the decades of the next
century passed, step by step progress was made. At
the first session of the Colonial Legislature of Upper
Canada in 1793, an act was passed abolishing
slavery. Among the French in the lower province a
few slaves were held after this time, but gradually
they were set at liberty until the whole country was
washed clean of that stain. Besides this, Canada be
came a place of refuge for many of the slaves of
United States who, escaping from their bondage, suc
ceeded by the help of abolitionists forming the "Un
derground Railroad," in reaching the free soil of that
country. The formation of the Dominion of Canada uniting
the provinces into a real nation with its Parliament
at Ottawa, yet each province having its own local
assembly similar to the federal system in United
States, gave a great uplift for better things to British
America. Unity of power has enabled commercial
expansion to offer multitudes of gifts to the restless
inhabitants, easy access to the Pacific coast has been
reached, the new nation can treat with other nations

494 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
on the ground of equality. England naturaUy holds
lax leading strings.
The religious sects of similar name and theology
were moved by a spirit of union like that of the po
litical sections. Previous to the middle of the nine
teenth century, no less than eight Presbyterian bod
ies were sustaining their own religious opinions and
practices. Wiser counsels prevailing, these churches
were finally amalgamated. Several Methodist sec
tions, also working separately for some decades,
coalesced into one Methodist church of Canada. By
these unions efficiency in work and labors was greatly
increased. As the Dominion expanded vaster fields
for the uplift of the people also were presented, the
union of these minute sections greatly helping for
ward church work.
Indeed, so valuable were the results of these com
binations that the twentieth century saw at its
opening a still broader step toward the fostering of
its religious life. This was no less than an attempt
to unite three prominent denominations supposed to
vary much In polity and doctrines, the Methodists,
Presbyterians, and Congregatlonalists. This ad
vance movement was started in 1902, by the General
Conference of the Methodists, held at Winnipeg,
suggesting an organized union of all the evangelical
denominations of Canada. This proffer being taken
up by the Presbyterians and Congregatlonalists,
committees have been formed, meetings and confer
ences held and a union may result. Should this be
done it would be the first in all the history of Chris
tianity of a union among denominations so divergent

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 496
as these. Suggesting this fraternal spirit and lead
ing to it have been the International Sunday School
Conventions, Missionary Conferences, and gatherings
of the Young People's Movement. Canada in this
way is setting a noble example to other peoples, to
the one hundred fifty sects in United States, to the
two hundred thirty-six said to exist in Great Britain.
Not only in this magnificent movement to a higher
Christian life are the Canadians nobly leading the
way to higher things, but they are doing this in other
directions. In forming a colonial legislature of their
own, in granting wide elective franchise, in reaching
legal equality among the denominations and In other
ways, these people, touched with the high spirit of all
America, have been giving to other British colonies
and beyond them to all the world, exalted examples of
God's good plans for his children.
As the twentieth century is passing there opens
for Canada a new field of expansion. The Canadian
Pacific Railroad before this date had pushed an ave
nue of improvement among the mines of British Co
lumbia, to the rich fisheries of the coast and to an
outlook of the growing importance of the world's
movement in commerce on the Pacific Ocean. Then
it was found that a vast region of northwest Canada,
reaching near the Arctic Circle, rich in soil, of wide
prairie land, of easy access, and touched by the warm
currents of the Pacific Ocean, would produce wheat
and other cereals In most amazing abundance. New
railroads have penetrated these regions, settlers have
flocked to this land of promise from other parts of
Canada, from United States and from all parts of the

496 THE RELIGIOUS- LIFE OF
world. Along with the settlers have gone the alert
church authorities as a hundred years before they
did In eastern Canada. With the expansion of view
in the boundless west, with its freedom and oppor
tunity, with its new life and promise of better things
to the people has gone a deeper, richer religious Hfe.
Intensity of action has marked it. Churches have
been organized, houses for worship built, an open free
spirit has been persistent, the feeling among the de
nominations more amicable. Among the floods of
immigrants have come various sects, the Mennonites,
Jews, the absurd Doukhobors. The Indians of those
sections have been protected and carefully taught the
Christian evangel.
Not least among the benefactions of this interest
ing expansion Is the peculiar tide of immigration from
England. To philanthropists it has offered new
fields for giving fresh chances to needy people. Dr.
Barnado was not blind to this opening, being able to
send thousands of children picked up on the streets
of London to the good homes and open opportunities
of Canada. Work girls by the hundreds, restricted
by poverty, by imperfect social conditions, and by
the sharp competition of labor in England, have been
sent to the Dominion to find remunerative employ
ment and better chances every way for a higher life.
The splendid work of the Salvation Army is foremost
in these labors. In one year no less than twenty-five
thousand emigrants were aided by them to go to Can
ada. To those people of Great Britain, ignorant of
a home, there awaited with a song and a little dil
igence and work, one in the Canadian northwest. So

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 497
valuable has been the success of the Army among the
suffering people in overcrowded England that the
government of that realm, with a view of offering
similar help to its people, is officially investigating
the methods and results of this movement of General
Booth. Above all other results of Canadian life is the
splendid class of people produced in that country.
All the growth in the many fields has come of its
people. They have been strong, persistent, hopeful,
pious. Almost everybody in the Dominion belongs
to some one of the churches. They have been wise
in adjusting difficulties among themselves and attain
ing new positions of strength and success. Fairness
has marked their relation with neighboring nations
and with the imperial government. Statesmen of
high diplomacy and of wide vision have been pro
duced. Legislators of acute insight have made wise
laws. Orators of great power have spoken from Can
ada's forum, from its platforms and from its pulpits.
Theologians of great breadth and deep research have
enriched their own special fields. Men have been
raised to fill most ably the highest, most burdensome
offices of the various churches. Writers on many
subjects have added to the literature of the English
tongue, already so rich and varied. Science has been
enlarged by able and original research. Who can
foretell the future of the Canadians ?

CHAPTER LI
In South Africa, the English found conditions on
its conquest from the Dutch different from those
found on the conquest of Canada. For two centuries
it had been settled by the Dutch, a most stubborn
race, not far removed In blood from the English
themselves. The Dutch Reformed Church had among
their own colonists been set up from the early occupa
tion. Consistories were organized, the people
whether in towns or on the grazing veldts were most
pious in their observances. An Old Testament spirit
similar to that of the Puritans guided them. Their
attitude toward the natives, however, was most un
fortunate. Though so long here before the British
conquest, they had done little but enslave them. The
Reformed Church founded no missions among them.
After the famous treks northward and the establish
ment of the Boer states they enslaved the natives
without interference from British laws.
At the very dawn of the nineteenth century the
London Missionary Society, in its infancy selected
Cape Colony as a place to establish a mission. It
gradually pushed northward, starting stations among
the natives, British control being a protection and a
help. But in questions between the natives and col
onists these early missionaries caused trouble with
the authorities since they sided with the natives in the
quarrels, insistent for the rights of their converts.
A few years later than the London Mission, the
498

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 499
Wesleyans sending a missionary, Barnabas Shaw, to
Ceylon, allowed him for some reason to stop at Cape
Town and begin a mission. The natives to be num
bered by the million were so numerous and the
Europeans so few that most of the development of
the religious life, at least in those decades, was in the
mission field. Shaw wanted to open a mission among
the natives under British and Dutch control but was
forbidden by the governor. He had formed a be
ginning of his denomination already among the
soldiers under the pious care of a sergeant. As he
could not start a mission near Cape Town he decided
to go beyond that control and treked northward.
While doing so he was met by a chief from the tribe
of Little Namacquas coming to the colony to obtain
a missionary to work in his tribe. Mr. Shaw deem
ing this a call from Heaven, offered to go back with
the chief to his people. He formed a most successful
station among them, setting up industrial schools,
teaching agriculture and mechanical trades, as well
as the Bible. This case was comparable to those
Indians who in the early history of St. Louis, Mis
souri, came from the far northwest coast in search
of the Bible and the Christian religion.
As the various sections of the new state were being
extended and settled, the Wesleyans in lack of other
church organizations on the ground, were about the
only ones to offer religious services to the Europeans.
Making Grahamstown a kind of metropolitan city
for themselves, they pushed their peculiar circuit
system over all the provinces and far out among the
natives.

600 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
A missionary spirit came strongly to many of the
native converts. To teach Christianity to their fel
low natives they went among members of their own
tribes or to distant ones, sometimes to those who were
bitterly hostile. One Aser on such a mission passed
with three companions several hundred miles north
ward to Baniai. The passage without roads, across
the plains, through forests and over unknown rivers
was most difficult. Added to such difficulties and
dangers were the greater ones from lions and other
ferocious beasts. At night they had to climb trees
to be safe from the prowling marauders. Success
deserved by such daring and devotion was reached.
Among their fellows they established a prosperous
mission. The Lovedale School, founded by William Govan,
has had such success as to become known far beyond
South Africa. While nominally under the Scot Pres
byterian Church, it was wholly from the start non-
sectarian, open to all people, whites and blacks work
ing and studying together. It was one of the earliest
cases of industrial schools to pagan people, the
founder, through trustfulness and persistence in
overcoming obstacles, finally making his idea a bril
liant success. It was to be a pioneer and example
not only in South Africa, where similar schools have
been set up, but far from that locality many schools
for the same purpose among backward peoples have
proved the supreme worth of this man's leading.
Gradually the various missionary societies founded
schools, some of them open to girls. To help these
early beginnings the government gave grants in aid,

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 501
and often partly paid the teachers. After some
decades this help was stopped. The wise governors
saw the worth of schools, Clarendon as early as 1807
having them started. In 1820 the South African
College was founded, being aided by the home govern
ment and by the people of the colonies. Sir George
Grey, to start a library in town, gave a most valu
able collection of rare books and choice manuscripts.
To this gift others were added with an increase of
literature and kindred accessories of a valuable public
library. The twentieth century finds a hundred
libraries in South Africa, eighty newspapers, a fine
government college with arts department and those
of law and medicine. There are also the colleges of
the various denominations.
English speech instead of Dutch was required in
official business, schools being opened in various towns
to enable all to attain that tongue. In 1817, the im
mortal Moffat began his missionary tours far to the
north, getting among the natives who knew little of
civilization and cared less for it. War, rapine, their
pagan rites, the awful practice of the witch doctor,
made their condition most deplorable. These people,
the Bantu race, were of the splendid South African
natives known as the Zulus, Kafirs, the Metabals and
others. They are not of the negro race of the cen
tral regions of the continent. They are of high
mental powers, having proven themselves capable to
a great degree of receiving western civilization. It
is no wonder that Christian men and women from
Great Britain, from the continent and from far-away
America should press religious work among them.

502 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
Moffat's still more famous son-in-law, Livingstone,
as the century reached its middle, pushed northward
still beyond the trek of any missionary. The wan
derlust possessed him. Northward among the wUd
est tribes he went, then westward to the Atlantic
coast, returning, passed down the Zambesi finding
Victoria Falls and opening the way for other Euro
peans. Hunters killing the huge ferocious beasts
helped clear the way for missionaries, who following
Moffat and Livingstone planted their stations yet to
ward Zambesi. Foremost of all was Livingstone,
going far beyond the Zambesi, exploring the Lake
Nyassa region, then westward to the fountains of
the mighty Congo, there to die among his devoted
blacks. How much he did to open the center of the
continent to commerce and missions, to aid in clos
ing that open sore of African curse, the Arab slave
hunting, is not yet told. Missions have followed the
track of the devoted explorer, and Central Africa
has been opened from every side to the Christian re
ligion and to modern progress.
If the Anglican Church was slow in setting up its
organization outside the military stations, once estab
lished it did noble work. The growing towns were
occupied by it nor did it stop with the British people
but opened missions among the natives like the other
denominations. The Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel aided the beginnings with money as did
the Glasgow Society in Canada. The Episcopal See
of Cape Town was set up in 1843, and four years
later Bishop Gray was appointed to It by Letters
Patent. This kind of an appointment by the home

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 503
government made him and his diocese free from the
province of Canterbury, fortunately giving the
colonial church freedom from many traditions and re
strictions. Parishes were planned, schools estab
lished, colleges started, synods founded to be as val
uable as In Canada.
The consecration of a colonial bishop at Cape
Town, the right claimed by local authorities and al
lowed at home, led the way to a broader construction
of the Anglican rules so that bishops were set apart
for the vast Australasian domains as the church in
those regions took form. At the first, to the Cape
Town diocese were joined Mauritius, St. Helena, and
other separated colonies. So successful was this de
nomination among the natives that the nineteenth
century closed with its membership numbered by the
ten thousand. Soon too a native chief was made a
priest to be foUowed by other natives given ordina
tion. The affair of Bishop Colenso at Natal which
created quite a flurry in the theological world worked
rather for the enlargement of the religious life in
South Africa, for its freedom, as well as for free
dom of religious thought. Colenso wrote some books
not considered orthodox, his view of the Bible being
considered heretical and the Metropolitan of Cape
Town tried to depose him. To this action Colenso
objected, as also to the rulings of the home church
to which appeal was made. After much controversy
he was excommunicated by the Cape Town Metro
politan and though he set up by himself and had a
considerable following, he gradually fell out of sight.
One gain was that the Colonial Church by its course

504 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
in the affair was declared to be free from the home
church. This enabled it to work more freely in local
matters and to become more efficient. The consecra
tion there of the local bishop led to that of missionary
bishops to Australasia, giving Patterson, Selwyn,
Harrington, Tucker, Sturne and others to the un
folding work in those far regions.
Cape Colony was granted a legislature in 1854,
after which the country was left mostly to govern
itself. It was a lucky relief to the colony. It was
fortunate in Sir George Grey as governor, sensible,
pious, cultured. While his plans for a federation of
the various colonies did not carry, they paved the
way for such a union later on. Slavery abolished in
all British dependencies in 1834 involved that of the
subject Dutch, and of the twenty million pounds
voted to indemnify slave owners, a million and a quar
ter were allowed Cape Colony. The slave owners
were cheated out of much of this sum by dishonest
agents in London where claims alone could be paid.
Further on, after the great trek of the Boers and the
founding of their new states, they held many natives
in slavery.
So injurious to natives was the cheap brandy
manufactured in great quantities and sold to them
that vigorous steps were entered upon to stop its
manufacture by the colonists and sale to the natives,
but little came of it. The Cape wines were debarred
in England in favor of the lighter French wines so
that ruin stared the wine makers in the face. On
this account the efforts for temperance were mostly
futile, the material good of the colonists in financial

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 506
fields blocking the moral good for the natives. How
ever, among the Fingoes, a tribe especially under the
direction of the British, the Resident Captain Blythe
persuaded some of the chiefs to give up strong drink
and their example told finely on the people. Later
legislation and popular opinion have mostly stopped
the sale, thus protecting the natives from ruinous re
sults. With the two alluring finds of gold and diamonds
in South Africa came a change big with destiny for
that country. The mines of gold and diamonds were
found in the territory of the Boers. Friction be
tween the related peoples led to quarrels and notwith
standing modern enlightenment and the pacific in
fluences of the Christian religion, war came. The
history of the Boers, their treks and states founded
by themselves, their heroic, sublime struggle against
the giant power of Great Britain aroused a wave of
sympathy for them the world over. Yet their con
servatism stood in the way of best progress, of rights,
freedom and Christianity. The dream of some far-
seeing and enthusiastic Englishmen of a united, wide
spread Anglo-Saxon nation in South Africa, has,
after they have passed to the beyond, come as a price
less reality, and South African union is a fact with its
measureless blessings of civil and political and re
ligious liberty.

CHAPTER LII
Before real settlements were made for colonization
in New Zealand three classes of European people
had gone there. One of these were ship-loads of men
in search of seals and whales, the waters about these
islands teeming with these mammals. Such men,
heedless of native rights though in some cases married
to native women, regardless of Sundays, turning their
harbors into a saturnalia on pay days, were in most
part a pest yet in some ways did good. Then an
other class of British to come were escaped convicts
from the Australian penal colonies who could in al
most any craft make passage across the sea. Of
course they were not desirable immigrants. Fre
quently associated with them were runaway sailors
who, disliking their conditions on shipboard and the
discipline, took French leave of their vessels, these
men also not being very desirable settlers. The third
class were missionaries. Here, early in the nine
teenth century the call heard In so many other places
by the Anglo-Saxon race was heeded.
The Anglican Church was early on the ground with
its mission both to the natives and to the transients.
So too the Wesleyans were early at work with their
usual success. These pioneers were in due time fol
lowed by other missionaries so that the noble pur
pose to bring to the backward people the blessings
of a better life was in operation. These missionaries
506

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 607
were very practical, bringing grain seeds, potatoes
and other food starts for the eager Maoris. The
story is told of a native returning from Europe bring
ing some wheat. How to raise bread from it was the
puzzle. They had already seen potatoes dug from
the ground and wondered if the new food was pro
duced the same way, but pulling it up did not bring
results. Letting some of it ripen they were at a loss
how to prepare the grain. Finally with a hand mill
from the missionaries they ground some of the wheat
to flour and making crude bread of it without yeast
were transported with joy at the new food and its
promise of good eating.
The tales of toil among the Maoris have seldom
been equaled by men engaged in any pursuit. The
people to whom the missionaries went and for whom
they sometimes gave their lives, were cannibals, were
accustomed to Infant murder, were at war most of
the time between the clans and little tribes, and yet
were full of splendid promise as the finest, most pro
gressive of the Polynesian race met by Europeans.
The fearless, tireless missionaries — what will not men
risk to carry the gospel to the needy — ^went among
this people, sometimes being present at their cannibal
feasts, and other awful practices, but gradually ob
tained an influence over them for better things.
Across mountain ranges afoot, through swamps over
grown with stiff, tall grasses, swimming flooded rivers,
through lurking dangers from savage man, and from
hidden evils of the country, the missionaries persisted
in going. Seeing the great endurance and power for
such exposure and toU by Bishop Selwyn, even the

508 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
natives said it was a gift of God to perform those
labors. If sometimes the evil-minded Europeans provoked
the natives to plan and execute massacres, and bloody
reprisals were made, the missionaries full of hope for
the Maoris, held fast to their purpose of leading them
to the better things of western life. The acute na
tives soon learning the difference between the drunken
whalers and the devoted missionaries, would beg mis
sionaries to come and settle among them. So with
the Bible and faith, with aids of material things to
help the natives in the upward climb, the missionaries
of various churches went and usually met with most
pleasing success. At the first the missionaries stood
opposed both to the colonization of the country by
English and its annexation to the Empire, but a
movement on the part of French Catholics to colonize
a section of the island caused the missionaries, in fear
of the malign influence of those troublesome people,
to seek annexation. The chiefs, led by the mission
aries to accept this change, in a kind of national con
vention in 1840 ceded the islands to the Queen of
England. Sir George Grey, passing from the gover
norship of Cape Colony, could say to the Maoris after
only eight years of annexation, "Churches and schools
have been established, lands have been plowed, miUs
have been built, great roads have been made, abun
dance prevails everywhere."
Some interesting attempts at colonizing took place
in the new and attractive islands. One of these at
tempts was made on the south island by a company
of Scot Presbyterians. It was to be wholly sectarian

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 509
and of a class of people such as the Scots would
naturally gather, pious, intense, and aiming at most
practical results. It did not succeed in creating a
Utopia either religiously or socially, while its finan
cial results were sparce and lingering. Later when
gold was discovered on that island, with its attendant
rush of miners and traders, the colony mostly lost
its exclusive characteristics and finally became
cosmopolitan. Another attempt at a specialized
colony was made by the Anglican Church people.
Perhaps it was with a kind of double reference that
they called themselves Canterbury Pilgrims. This
colony, like that of the Scots, was designed to be re
stricted to one sect and further to be a class colony
to people of quality. Land was secured, farms and
domains laid out, settlers came, but neither did this
colony reach Utopian success. Indeed, the young
colonial Anglo-Saxon has growing up In his breast
a detestation of class distinction as well as of secta
rian excluslveness. This spirit has shown itself In
politics, hence the eager strife in all the large colonies
for legislatures and for government by themselves.
Out of this spirit came the American independence.
Later Canada led off in this spirit and purpose, hav
ing been foUowed by many legislative children of the
British constitution.
Some of the missionaries before annexation had
obtained large sections of land from the pliant and
ignorant natives and this condition occasioned much
friction. Finally adjustments were made by which
the missionaries retained some of the lands and some
were given up. The government to grant aid to the

510 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
schools, required industrial training. A steady im
provement in education went on among both natives
and colonists. All children from seven to thirteen
were kept in school, and schools for girls were opened
which were successfully used by them. There the
girls were taught sewing and political economy be
sides their books, while boys, besides the ordinary
studies, were put through military drill. The schools
were made free, secular, and compulsory. As the New
Zealand University was opened and carried on, one-
third of the students were women and it is claimed
that it is the first university in the British empire to
confer degrees on women. As a reflex influence the
home government recognized those degrees. In this
matter that colony grandly followed the opportuni
ties given women in the American universities.
This late colony of Great Britain is most progres
sive in spirit. More than sixty religious sects are
represented with forty percent, of the church people
belonging to the Anglicans, half as many to the
Presbyterians, with many Catholics, Wesleyans, and
other denominations. There Is no established church.
Here, as in South Africa, the Anglican Church is free
from the home church. So progressive Is this new
state that in 1893 the franchise was granted women
and this is found to be an important addition to
rights. The Conservative party, not the Progres
sive, gave this franchise and "considered it a fair
and logical act of justice." Women are not al
lowed a place in the colonial Parliament but are
with the superior chances of education with in
creasing numbers entering the professions. They

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 511
fully use the ballot nor has it had any tendency to
unsex them nor has the franchise caused any in
novations in Parliamentary life. The principle of
the prohibition of the liquor traffic and the use of
strong drinks is steadily gaining ground. A unique
method of arbitration between workmen and em
ployers entered upon in 1894 has been found to
act most admirably. Under it strikes have been
sent to the limbo of unnecessary trouble, for by it
both workmen and employers are protected. Trades
unions are benefited and if there is a lingering
fear among employers that in the long run the
method is not to succeed, they seem to be the only
ones with such misgivings.
The missionaries did in New Zealand what so many
of them in other parts of the world have done for
backward peoples, reduced the savage speech to
written form, giving to the eager natives books
and papers and the precious Bible. Not only is this
work done by the devoted missionaries as a gift be
yond computation to the native races, but philology
has been enriched and the world at large been given
wider information by these studies. Here with the
native legends collected and put into print and thus
preserved, was done what makes every student of
history and of ethnology and of comparative re
ligions delighted beyond measure.
The piety of the natives sometimes blended the
old and the new. So eager were they for the book
that told them of the new faith that they sometimes
attributed superstitious powers to it. A party of
English wanted to climb one of the imposing moun-

512 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
tains but were denied by the native chief having con
trol of that locality because he said the mountain
had been made sacred by their forefathers. Gold
was offered but in vain. The chief said later that
if the New Testament had been offered instead of
gold the vow would have been released. The mis
sionaries, as in South Africa, stood between the na
tives and the British and also knowing the speech
and customs of the Maoris, were enabled to be in
terpreters between them when treaties and land sales
were being made. In some instances the ability to
be interpreters both of speech and of mutual claims
of the two peoples led to peace where else had been
war. After the remarkable Han Han fanaticism
ended in which the natives tried in vain to drive
the British out of their country there arose no se
rious difficulty that could not be aUayed by the con
ciliatory missionaries.
Those two noble societies, that of Propagation,
and that of Knowledge, greatly aided the Anglicans
as in other colonies with money to start missions,
build schools and colleges. The purpose was to
reach all the Maoris with modern life through all
the fourteen hundred miles' extension of the great
group of islands. This was steadily done and so
successfully that in no lengthened time practicaUy
all were converted to Christianity. A nation as
under the vision of the Bible seer was born to God
in a day.
Here, as had been done in Canada and in other
colonies, the established Legislature and the Anglican
Church proceeded to clear that denomination from

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 513
binding connection with the home church. In New
Zealand the Anglican Church entered the twentieth
century with six dioceses covering the whole extent
of the island. Other denominations also pushed
their work till all the Maoris, though a vanishing
race, have been uplifted in all ways by the EngHsh.
The view is presented of another great territory
large enough for the home of an independent nation
colonized by the restless Anglo-Saxons, a country
of most varied climate and productions, open to all,
with superior rights, free churches, untrammeled
freedom, and universal equality.

CHAPTER LIII
Under the Southern Cross was estabUshed in the
nineteenth century another great colonial nation of
the British Empire. Australia followed Canada.
There was a virgin continent with Its extended coast
and wide inland expanse, having climate varying
between tropical heat and temperate coolness. It
was the fairest opportunity ever offered a people
to found a nation. If the beginnings of coloniza
tion in United States were tainted with wrong no
tions of Cavalier, of Pilgrim and of Puritan, there
was little of the virus of old notions taken to this
latest colony. The slight urgency for aristocratic
standing was brushed aside by the high democratic
spirit of the settlers, and the claim at first put In
by the Anglican precedence was compelled to yield
to the rights of the free churches.
Yet the beginnings of colonizing in Australia were
with the worst classes of population. Penal estab
lishments were the first form of settlement. Such
establishments were urged as "an asylum in which
felons could be cheaply kept, and from which there
could be no possibility of escape." So on the new
shores, even before the eighteenth century closed,
criminals by the ship load were dumped whom Eng
land could not take care of In her jails and prisons.
It was considered good riddance to bad rubbish.
Stern military officers with their heartless soldiery
were their armed guards. The formal ceremonies
514

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 516
of religion poorly met the restless spirit engendered
by their home crimes and their strange colonial out
look. They continued vicious and insubordinate.
Some escaped to the natives, others hid In the bush
to die of exposure and starvation and a few be
came helpful In their attempts at prosperity.
The need was for real settlers of upright char
acter and industrious habits with knowledge of farm
ing and stock raising. Money from the sale of
public lands was used to aid Immigration. Along
with these emigrants went the ministers of the de
nominations and soon churches of their faith were
everywhere in evidence. West of the coast of New
South Wales plains of almost boundless extent
awaited the stock raiser. Most of the settlers upon
those cattle ranches and sheep runs grew rich and
with their wealth took many of the amenities of
modern life. Not only did they take books and
music and elegances with them, but they helped the
settlement of the preacher and of the schoolmaster
among them.
Ministers were compelled, as In the early history
of United States and Canada, to become itinerants
In following the scattered families far into the wilds.
The diary of J. D. Merriweather is preserved in the
libraries, who, as an itinerant of the Anglican
Church, went into the stock-raising regions to per
form the offices of his denomination to the people
he could find. The pastoral region given this man
by the Bishop Included all between one hundred
forty and one hundred seventy-nine degrees of
longitude and between thirty-four and thirty-six

516 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
degrees south latitude. Hither, thither he went,
afocit, by canoe of slenderest structure, in danger
of starvation, of being lost on the plains or in the
bush, liable to be drowned in the overflowing rivers,
and of being submerged in the treacherous bogs.
Now he would have seven to hear him read the
church services, again nine, then he would find some
Englishman out in a herder's hut alone or with one
helper, one to watch in the daytime the other to
guard the stock by night. On long itineraries he
went, to baptize those needing that rite, to marry
the young couples, to bury the dead. A year of
such toil injured his health so he was compelled to
give it up. He could record that "one needed phys
ical strength, with moral determination, and must
look for approval to a Higher Power than his fel
low man."
He came into little contact with the natives.
These had mostly been killed off by the restless set
tlers or driven farther into the bush. The story
of the Australian natives is not a pleasant one to
the student of history. As soon as the convicts and
colonists were established at Sydney they began mal
treating the poor people, kUling them on the slight
est provocation, destroying their canoes along the
beach and in many ways provoking retaliation. As
the natives were a very feeble folk they were unable
to defend themselves as the Maoris of New Zealand
or the Redskins of America. As the stock raisers
occupied the plains for grazing, the wild animals
upon which the natives mostly relied for food were
killed off or driven beyond the reach even of the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 517
scattered aborigines. Then to obtain food the
famishing natives turned pilferers of the sheep cotes,
of hen yards, gardens and granaries, so provoking
the pioneers as to be shot down like voracious beasts.
Organized hunts like those to destroy wolves in west
ern America were formed, it is said, on which the
natives, men, women and children, were killed at
sight. In Queensland they were sometimes flogged
Hke abject slaves.
But let it be said to the praise of certain new set
tlers that limited attempts at better things were
made. Some of the British turned missionaries to
the natives, though they were so scattered and of
such nomadic habits that sometimes a mission sta
tion after a while would be left without a native,
or a pupil in the school. A few schools near the
large cities were set up in which a limited success
was reached in civilizing those most savage people.
Food and blankets were distributed by some of the
colonial governments to them, as if in compensa
tion for the kangaroos and wombats driven out by
the sheep herders and cattle men.
As could be expected in a convict settlement the
use of strong drinks was a most dreadful curse. At
first little effort was made to keep them away from
either convicts or natives, since a most lucrative
trade in them arose. But such disorder and crime
came of the use of liquor that the government
passed most drastic laws against its coming into the
new settlements and its sale or transfer to the black
fellows. Pity it is that such a barbarism should
persist in Christian civilization. As early as 1801,

518 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
the Hawkesbury settlers as an outcome of their dis
solute habits sought to have the courts so arranged
that creditors could not attain judgments. Early
at Botany Bay, the excessive use of liquors by the
settlers produced such wild conduct as greatly to
depress the good purpose of the colony. As Queens
land took colonial form and grew, a law of local
option was enacted with good results. The modern
efforts for temperance, the Good Templars, Tee
total Associations, Bands of Hope, Woman's Chris
tian Temperance Union, and other organizations
with the same object in view, have been in active
operation throughout all Australasia. Possibly the
churches have not been as pronounced for temper
ance as they should have been.
An experiment for caring for juvenile dependents
has been undertaken and appears full of promise.
Instead of putting them in asylums or reformatories
in masses, they are put out into families, one or two
or three at a place, still the wards of the govern
ment. Philanthropic people serve as committees
to look after these boarders, making reports to
government authorities. So far this system has
been most valuable. In many instances the children
are so liked that they are adopted by the people
holding them. Indeed, as could be guessed would be
done in this latest Anglo-Saxon nation, great at
tention has been paid to the needs of the vagrant
young, the poverty smitten, the vicious, the flotsam
and jetsam of modern times. Asylums have been
built for the deaf and dumb, for the weak minded,
for the insane, for the unprotected. Care has been

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 519
taken to make these institutions pleasant and help
ful to the unfortunate occupants. One has the
sweet name of Hazelwood. About it are gardens,
orange groves, vineyards, these helping in the kindly
care given the inmates. Proper boards in connec
tion with the governments of the various colonies
have looked after these benevolent institutions,
showing paternalism in this and many other ways
as the highest duty of government. As early as
1852, a society in Sydney was formed to save the
street arabs, the interest so increasing that in no
lengthening time buildings were erected in which a
thousand children could be cared for. Teachers
were employed for these children and great care was
taken to make good people out of the waifs. An
orphan asylum was built at Parramatta with Sisters
of Charity putting in their kind ministries with good
results. Ragged schools attended to the wants of
such children as could be induced to attend them.
Christian philanthropy passed by none. To teach
the spirit of economy, savings banks where children
could deposit a part of their earnings have been
established and the children taught to lay up money
for the needs of later days.
Among those far-sighted pioneers in a new con
tinent education has held an important place. The
imperfect modes of England's educators were at
first loosely followed and the missionaries of the va
rious sects, aware of the needs of schools, had estab
lished them which the government for some decades
aided with grants of money. But this was a fruit
ful cause of friction and by the third quarter of the

520 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
century had mostly ceased, free secular schools only
receiving government aid. Attendance on these is
compulsory. Illiterates are few. Universities have
been founded, the one at Sydney as early as 1851,
and are affiliated with the British universities. A
system for carrying out modern needs has been suc
cessfully entered upon all over Australia, — the estab
lishment of Mechanical Institutes. They have been
set up by the score under the governments. In
them are taught many forms of industry, technical,
mechanical, arts, mining and others. To a race
as strenuous for work as ours such institutes must
yield vast good. Besides these, evening schools are
common for adults unable to attend the other ones.
Before the middle of the century the convict sys
tem came to an end. In 1836, of the two hundred
thousand people in New South Wales one-half were
convicts. The free settlers did not want the fair
promise being wrought out with painful experience
to be poisoned any longer with that system. The
arrival of the last load or two sent to Sydney al
most caused a riot and they were permitted to land
only when definitely hired to some of the people.
To be relieved of the incubus that had weighted
down the fair land for half a century was an un
speakable relief. Gradually the freed ones had be
come mostly absorbed in the better society grown
up. But so pressing was the demand for labor that
for a time Indian coolies and Chinese laborers and
Polynesian islanders were imported, especially in
Queensland, often to receive treatment little better
than in downright slavery. The outcry against the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 621
system has called for modifications in it to the re
hef of those human beings.
Judging from the great number of communicants,
from the church buildings, from missions of various
kinds, it can be seen that a great majority of the
people going to Australia have been pious ones.
Census returns have shown the Anglican Church to
be the most numerous, with Catholics standing next,
followed by the Wesleyans and Presbyterians, while
Independents, Baptists, and other sects by the
score have many people attending their churches.
Preachers of the various faiths have covered all the
settled portions of the continent with the teachings
of the Bible. One visiting Sydney, Adelaide, Perth,
and other important cities is impressed by the
magnificent cathedrals of those denominations put
ting up such structures, and he is delighted with
the beauty of the churches of the sects less pre
tentious in their buildings. As he approaches lesser
towns along the coast or inland the church build
ings and their heaven-pointing spires attract the
vision at the earliest moment. To attend those
various places of worship is to find them full of
devout persons. Before the century was three-
fourths passed all state aid to the various churches
ceased, so that in the colonies organized with legis
latures of their own, no established church is al
lowed but all are free. This gives the religious con
sciousness its coveted liberty and the right it knows
to be its own for free development. Dioceses have
been cut out by the Anglicans and Catholics and the
country covered with these plans. Synods and Con-

522 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF
ferences and Conventions mark the complete organ
ization of other denominations. Most efficient is the
religious state under such active church life carried
on in sympathetic fraternity. In all the public
schools religious instruction from the Bible is in some
way required. Country life, as could be expected,
has in many ways been made bright and sweet by
the cultured, devout men and women going to the
isolated work of ranchers. The cosy chapel on
the great estate, attractive to the large number of
people employed, the music played by the wife or
daughter of the cattle ranger, the country choir of
no mean capacity, offset the restrictions and hard
toil, the lonely location and the absence of more
stirring city life. At such stations the rancher,
if no minister comes to him, frequently reads the
service and guides the religious hour.
The richest kind of gold deposits found about the
middle of the century, brought a vast inrush of
miners. The government was poorly prepared to
deal with such masses of people, the churches
could but illy meet the calls that arose. Vice multi
plied. Robbery and murder made the country un
safe for travel and traffic. But the very effort to
clear the country of such disorderly conditions and
elements no doubt helped the colonies for the last
great act in the nineteenth century for Australia,
its federation.
Australia's seven provinces, after suggestions
from governors and others, planned a convention
in 1891 at Sydney. The plans were patterned much
after United States. This plan would give the

THE ANGLO-SAXON RACE 523
highest political rights, national, religious, social,
personal. The Parliament, as was planned, was not
permitted to make any laws hindering the free ex
ercise of religion or to make any religious test. To
every person was given an equal share in political
power, thus insuring the rights of individuals. These
recommendations to the home government were
gradually worked out toward the complete federa
tion. What kind of people do all these kind gifts of the
Heavenly Father produce? Shaped by democracy,
with an open field and wide vision, granted free re
ligion and free speech, made free also from some old
world conservatism and exclusive notions, the Aus
tralian of the twentieth century is self-possessed,
recognizes his equality to any other human being,
is brave, loyal, devout, a person of brawn and brain,
of faith and confidence. He is a man, one fashioned
by the development through vast generations of nat
ural attainments, and by thirteen centuries of Chris
tian gifts and growth.

INDEX

INDEX

PAGE
Anglo-Saxon. I, i6, 62, 414
Augustine  4
Aidan  10, 19
Art  37. 302
Alfred the Great  59
Athelstan  70
"Articuli Cleri"  109
Architecture  141
African Slavery  232
Armada  234
Arminius  244
Arminianism  277
Act of Toleration  304
Act of Settlement  308
Aikenhead, Thomas . . 318
Anti-Prinitarianism . . 323
Arminian Magazine . . 348
Addison  359
American War  371
Anglican Church Mis
sionary Society  377
Asbury, Francis ..441-444
American Revolution.. 443
Anti- Slavery Society. . 450
Anti-Saloon League . . 455
American Board of
Foreign Missions... 466
Anglican Church 
 502, 513, 521
Australia  514
Asylums  518
B

Bertha  3,43

527

Bible. .23, 162, 197, 211,
213. 243, 364, 385, 405,
413, 419, 422, 511, 522
Boniface  27, 64
Beede  27, 57, 64
Beowulf  56
Erunanburh  57
Becket, Thomas  96
Bacon, Roger .... 106, 147
Book of Common
Prayer  186, 256
Black Death  1 11
Bloody Six Articles. . . 180
Book of Liturgy  193
Bishop Jewel's Apology 220
Bacon, Lady Anne. . . . 221
Brownists  228
Browne, Robert  228
Bridges  267
Burroughs  267
Baptists  268, 437
Best  269
Baxter, Richard  285
Barrow  291
Barron, Isaac  298
Bill of Rights ....307, 310
Bribery  308, 326
Bishop Burnet  308
Bollngbroke  314
Barclay  317
British Museum  330
Bradburn, Samuel .... 351
Brotherhood of Man..
 372, 411
Ball, Miss  373
Blue Stocking Clubs . . 373
Berkley, Bishop  375

528

INDEX

PAGE
Baptist Missionary So
ciety  376
"Broad Church"  392
Baptist Union  394
Booth, William  398
Bickersteith, Mr  414
Bible Societies 
. .368, 415, 419, 461, 467
Bennett, Mr. and Mrs. 424
Burns, John  425
Bees, Miss  426
Baltimore, Lord  430
Berkley, Sir Wm  432
Boer War  505
Bands of Hope  518
C
Christianity  17
Coleman  18
Cuthbert  23
Clergy  52
Caedmon  58
Cynewulf  58
Cluny  69
Canute  69,82
Church Service  72
Court corruption  85
Crusaders  92, 123
Croylan  93
Constitution of Claren
don  96
Council of Constance. 126
Carthusians  127
Cistersians  128
Cambridge University.
 138, 192
Chicheley  138
Chaucer  148
Constitutional growth. 150
Cranmer  164, 177, 203
Cromwell, Thomas.171, 177

PAGE
Convocation  178,184
Commission, The  190
Cecil  210, 223
Calvinistic teachings.. 214
Clerics  215
Catholics ...216, 229, 281,
319. 334. 339. 382, 393, 439
Cartwright, Thomas . . .
 217, 226
Calvin's Institutes  220
Charles First ... 251, 276
Covenant, The  262
Catechism, Lesser and
Greater  262
Church Reform  262
Chillingworth  264
Cromwell, Oliver ....
270, 272, 278, 284, 286, 289
Cavaliers  275
Calvinism  265, 277
Charles Second  283
Change in literature. . 290
Cudworth  291
Clarendon  293
Cabal  293
Convocation  294, 305
Conventicles  295
Corporation Act  305
Cottonian Manuscripts 330
Claim of Right  336
Christian Library .... 348
Christian Perfection.. 389
Countess of Hunting
don  351
Coke, Dr  352, 375
Calvinistic Methodism 354
Circulating Schools . . . 363
Clappam sect  268
Clarkson  368
Christian Observer... 368
Church Missionary So
ciety  368

INDEX

629

PAGE
Christian Knowledge
Society  374
Carey, Wm  376
Corporation Act  382
Catholic Emancipation 396
Children Crusaders . . 397
Corruption  401
Christian people  419
China  416
Catholic Missions  419
Cuthberton, John  437
Civil War  451
Colleges for women . . 456
Colleges  139, 457
Chautauqua plan  460
Christian Science .... 464
Carnegie, Andrew .... 470
Church building  471
Columbian Exhibition. 473
Clark, Rev. F. E  476
Christian Endeavor So
ciety  476
Clark of Oberlin  477
Clergy Reserve  488
Constitutional Free
dom  493
Canadian Pacific R.R.. 493
Canada  495
Colenso, Bishop  503
Cape Colony  504
Convict system  520
D
Dunstan  46, 67
Danish devastations . . 66
Domesday Book  90
Dominicans  105
Decade of Ballinger . . 220
Deism  269, 340
Dissenters 
. .282, 294, 300, 315, 437

PAGE
Duke of Savoy  290
Defense of rights  303
Dean Swift  314
Decrease of religious
life  325
Drunkenness  327
Doddridge, Philip . . . 356
Dartmouth, Lord  362
Dissenters' Chapel Bill 402
Darwin, Charles  408
Denominations in Am
erica  436, 465
Dean, Nettie  478

Ethelbert  4.49
Earliest Library  6
Edwin  9
Ethelberga  9,45
Earpwald  10
Earswida  33
Ethelgiva  46-60
Elfric  61
Edmund  66
Edward  83
Edward Second  108
Edward Third  109, 113
Eton  139
English speech  149
English Reformation . .
 156, 166
Erasmus  158
English Bible  164, 181
England and the Papacy 185
Edward, Sixth  189
Eucharist  194
Established Church . .
 196, 219, 227, 236
Eagle, George  207
EHzabeth  210, 231, 237
Erastianism  255

530

INDEX

PAGE
Execution of Charles
First  277
End of Religious Wars 286
Elevation of the people 333
Evangelistic movement
 361. 362, 382, 413
Erskine brothers  365
Education 
• ¦¦385. 413.434, 456. 519
Ecclesiastical Titles'
Bill  397
English people  401
English Educational
System  406
Exeter Hall Centenary
Conference  418
Ecumenical Conference
 420, 467
Edwards, Jonathan . . . 434
Embury, Philip  441
Emancipation Procla
mation  452
Eddy, Mrs  464
Evangelical Alliance . .
 467. 472
"Evangelization of the
World in this Gen
eration"  478

Finan  19
Franciscan  105
Feudalism  132
Fox's Book of Martyrs 214
Falkland, Lord  269
Fairfax  273
Forty-two Articles  286
Fanaticism  299
Fasting and Prayer... 310
Fisher, Mary  316
Fairs  328

PAGE
Fletcher, John  361
Fry, Elizabeth  362
Five Mile Act  382
Fire Arms  418
Fiji Islands  420
Famine in India  421
Faneuil Hall  430
Freedom in religious
belief  442
Fox, George  450
Federation of Amer
ican Churches  467
Federation in Australia 522
G
Government  51
Godwine  84
Guilds  134
"Gospellers"  195
Gunpowder plot  242
Goodwin  267
Great Assize  276
Grand characters  309
George First  322, 326
Gibbon  341
George Third  367
Glasgow Missionary
Society  378
Gordon, Lord George. 381
General Baptists  385
Gough, John B  454
Good Templars . . .454, 518
Govan, Wm  500
Gray, Bishop  502
H
Hilda  46
Harold  86
Henry First  93
Henry Second  96

INDEX

531

PAGE
Henry Third  102
Henry Fourth  102
Huss  108
Henry Fifth  125
Harding  128
Henry Seventh  139
Hospitals  144, 470
Henry Eighth  160, 188
Hooker's Ecclesiastical
Polity  236
Hampden  264, 276
Hobbes  269
Herbert, Lord  269
Home  273
Huguenots  290
Holy Living and Dying 291
High Church and Low
Church  301
Hogarth  330
Handel  330
Hume  341
Holy Club  343
Holy Cummunion .... 351
Hymnology  355, 403
Hill, Sir Richard  362
Huntington, Countess.
 362, 364, 375
Harris, Howell  364
Howard, John  367, 371
High Church Trend. . . 392
Huxley, Professor
Thomas  409
Hills, Mrs  419
Home for lepers  422
Hogg, Quinton  423
Heck, Barbara  441

Influence of Christian
ity  78

PAGE
Ireland 
....98, 187, 257, 337, 365
Irish Rebellion  258
Insurrection in  258
Independents  267
Indulgences  301
Inventions  370
Irving, Edwards  396
Indian Territory  446
Immigration to Amer
ica  447,496
Inner Mission, The. . . 473
Itinerants  488, 490, 515
Institutional Church . . 473
Intoxicants  504. 5^8

J

Jews  79, 129, 282, 448
John  IOO, 152
Jaffrid  138
James of Scotland  239
Jeffreys  274
James Second  300, 303
Jones, Griffith  363
Japan  416
Jacobs, John  444
Juvenile dependents... 518
K
Knights Templars  109
King's College  139
Knox, John. . .185, 206, 213
King's Book of Sports 262
Ken  306, 358
Keble, John  388
Knowledge  512
L
Library  23

532

INDEX

PAGE
Lindisfarne  50
Literature. 55, 291, 334, 422
Lanfranc  91
Lollards  118, 125
Lower classes  121
Langland  148
Latimer  203
Liberty seekers  223
Laud  251, 263
Long Parliament  263
Latitudinarlan views . .
 270, 297
Levelers  270
"Law, Religion, Lib
erty"  275
Lutheranism  285
League and Covenant. 293
Lecturers  298
London Missionary So
ciety  377
Lancaster  386
Liquor traffic  418
Liberal Ministry  425
Lutherans  440
Lakin, Thomas  444
Livingstone  502
M
Monasteries ... .32, 40, 127
Manual labor  34
Music  38, 330
Metals  39
Monks  89
Magna Carta. 102, 152, 170
Margaret of Richmond 139
Manuscripts  141
Mortmain  153
Mill, Walter  185
Mary  199, 208
Martin Marprelate
Tracts  234

PAGE
Massacre of St. Bar
tholomew  23s
Mayflower  250
Mob violence  255
Montrose  273
Milton  27s, 285
Methodism 
• ¦343. 347. 349. 441. 494
More, Hannah  362, 370
Moravians  365, 440
McBurney, John  366
Macaulay, Zachary . . . 368
Martyn, Henry  368
Missionary work 
374, 376, 384. 387. 412,
413, 420
Martlneau, James .... 402
Medical work  413
Mildmay Conference. . 414
Mohammedans  415
Missionary Societies.. 415
Morrison  416
Moffatt, Mrs  419
Metaphysical Society. . 425
Moody, D. L  433
Mathew, Father  454
Mormons  463
Miller, Wm  464
Mott, John R. 478, 479, 480
Moffatt  500
Maoris  507
Merriweather, J. D. .. 515
N
Nuns  36, 44, 129
Norman Conquest . .82, 88
New Testament  117
Nonconformity 
 195, 222, 296
Nightingale, Florence. 276
Nye  267

INDEX

633

PAGE
New class of clerics.. 297
Nonjurors  305
Nelson, John  351
Norris  358
Newton, John  359
National Census in
.1851 ...;  383
National University. . 386
Newman, John Henry 388
No. 90  389
Native races  445
New Zealand  506
O
Oswald  13, 28
Oxford University . . . 136
Object of Religion. . . . 191
Owen, Dr. John  285
Occasional Conformity
Act  321
Olney Hymns  359
Oliver, Thomas  360
Orangemen's Associa
tion  367
O'Connell  383,401
Oxford Movement  388
Oceanica  417
Opium traffic  418
Oglethorpe, General.. 431
Ohio Crusade  454
Owen, Robert Dale . . 462

Pope Gregory  3
Paulinus  7
Penda  10
Peada  13
Pilgrimage  47, 49, 124
Parishes  53

PAGE
Parish Priests  63
Personal life  72
Penance  73
Prayers for the dead. 75
,Purgatory  75
Papacy  80
Peter's Pence . .81, 90 206
Philip Augustus  loi
Pope's draft  103
"Provisors".. .110, 112, 153
Preminure  112, 153
Peasants' Revolt  115
Printing press 
120, 159, 233, 314, 331,
373. 374. 421
Paper making  159
Pole, Reginald ...201, 204
Protestants  203
Persecutions  208
Prayer Book  213
Puritans 
217,221,225,229,237,265
Presbyterianism 
¦•;  139. 261, 279
Parliament  247
Pym  264, 276
"Power of the Keys". 266
Parliamentarians .... 275
Prince Charles  592
Prisons  295, 328, 371
Plague  298
Penn, Wm  300, 317, 430
Prince of Orange.... 311
Philanthropists 
 311, 470. 471
Pagan rites  318
Plans of preaching. . . 351
Pope  360
Perronet, Edward. . . . 360
Power of song  360
Palatines  365
Patriotic movement . . 366

634

INDEX

PAGE
Propagation Society..
 374. 512
Price  379
Pike, Rev. J. G  380
Parker, Dr. Peter  413
Pundita, Ramabai  421
Q
Queen's College  139
Quakers 
280, 316, 339, 382, 383,
438, 450
Queen Anne  321
Queen Victoria  400
R
Relics  28
Revival of monasti
cism  68
Rufus, Wm  92
Religious houses  95
Renascence ..157, 230, 410
Richard First  99
Revivals. 105, 364, 368, 370
Religious spirit  145
Reformation, The . . . 198
Religious decay  248
Red Cross  276
Rowland, Daniel  364
Robe  365
Religious life 
 365. 423. 428, 4.32
Relief Bill  366
Raikes, Robert  373
Reform Bill  401
Ramsey, Sir Henry... 422
Reed, Miss Mary  422
Rights  425
Rum, New England. . 434
Reform Church  440

PAGE
Rechabites  454
Religious freedom . . .
..462, 481, 483. 486, 523
Rockefeller, John D... 470

Schools ..20, 30, 135, 140,
318, 386, 413, 422, 500.
515. 517
Slaves  40, 120, 232
Social life  41
Synods  ^(), 103, 107
Stephen  95, ^51
Sacrament  107
Statute of Heresy  119
Spirit of democracy.. 120
Serfs  130
St. John's  139
Sports  143. 274
Superstitions  179
Star Chamber  226
Solemn League and
Covenant  256, 261
Scotland  255
School of writers  285
Scots  287
Seneca of England . . . 291
Saints' Everlasting
Rest  291
Stillingfleet  291,298
South, Robert  298
Sancroft  .306
Scepticism ..309, 339, 342
Schism Act  322
Sects  323, 333
Sacheverell  335
Steele, Anne  359
Stennell, Samuel  360
Soul hunger met  367
Slave trade ..369, 415, 449

INDEX

636

PAGE
Society for abolition of
slave trade  369
Sunday schools ..373, 459
Scottish Society for
propagating Chris
tian knowledge  377
Sacramentarians  390
Sisterhoods  392, 423
Spurgeon, Charles . . . 403
Spurgeon, Mrs  404
Scientific knowledge.. 408
Spencer, Herbert .... 409
Settlements  423
Science and religion.. 426
Shaw, Wm  444
Second Advents . .448, 464
Spiritual need of immi
grants  448
Scientific Temperance
Instruction  455
Shakers  463
Spiritualism  464
Student Volunteer
Movement. .467, 477, 478
Sage, Mrs. Russell . . 470
'Salvation Array. .398, 423
Socialism  483
South Africa  498
Shaw, Barnabas  499
Soicety for propaga
tion of the Gospel.. 502
Selwin, Bishop  507
T
Theodore  21
"Truce of God"  TJ
Thorpe's Testament.. 119
Trivium  136
Tyndale's New Testa
ment  160, 163, 177
Thirty-nine Articles . . 197

PAGE
Tillotson  291
Test Act  296, 305, 382
Transition  317
Toplady, Augustus . . . 360
Thornton, Henry  368
Theological Contro
versy  380
Tractarian Movement. 388
Tracts  389
Tyndall, Prof. John . . . 409
Tract Societies 
 415, 419. 462, 467
Thoburn  4^9
Telugus  419
Transvaal Mission  420
Toynbee, Arnold  425
Toynbee Hall  425
Tennents, The  ... 433
Temperance organiza
tions  453
Thompson, Mrs. Eliza 455
Theological Schools.. 457
Trappist sect  462
Thanksgiving  468
Tewksbury of Harvard 477
U
Ulfilas  16
"Use of Sarum"  92
Upper classes  121
Utopia ._  159
Uniformity  245
Universities  265, 289
Unitarianism 
...268, 310, 379, 382, 395
Union  337
Union of church and
state  431
V
Vision of Piers Plow
man  148

536

INDEX

PAGE
Vagabondage  175
Vane, Sir Harry  264
Venn, John  368
Vincent, John H  460
W
Wilfred  16,23
Willibrord  25
Woman . .42, 314, 346, 373,
416,419,426,427,456,510
Whitby  46
Wealth  65
William  87
William, Rufus  92
Wyclif  114
Wolsey  161, 167
Week day preaching. . 198
Witchcraft  249
Westminster Assembly
 260, 277
Women as patriots . . . 275
Wales  287, 363
William and Mary. . . .
,  303. 306, 313
Walpole  326
Whitefield 343, 353, 368, 418
Wesley, John 
, ••344. 357. 368, 374, 418
Wesley, Charles . .344, 357
Wesley, Susanna .... 350

PAGE
Watts, Isaac  355
Wilberforce, Wm. 362, 368
World's Sunday School
Convention  373
Wallis, Mrs. Beebe . . . 37O
Wesleyan Missionary
Society  384
Westminster Confes
sions  394
Wallace, Alfred R.... 408
Week of Prayer. .414, 468
Woman's Boards  419
Webb, Captain  441
Woman's Christian
Temperance Union...
 454, 455. 518
Willard, Frances E. . . 455
Wilder of Princeton..
 477. 478
Wesleyans  492, 499
Y
Young, Brigham  463
Young Men's Christian
Association . . . .467, 474
Young People's Socie
ties  467, 476
Young Men's Institutes 473
Young Woman's Chris
tian Association . . . 475

2703

m